Assessing the Damage

Assessing winter damage is something we usually do (with or without realizing it) during our first frosty walk through our gardens as the snow starts to disappear. During this walk we take a mental tally of the damages… some deer browsing here and some rabbit munching there; some ice and snow damage here and some wind damage over there...

Sometimes winter damage is apparent right away, other times it takes some warm weather to really bring out the problems (which we have yet to see).

I just wanted to share this with you…

Back in the beginning of April, I drove up to one of my properties and came face to face with this beautiful hedge… WHOA! I stopped dead in my tracks. Correction: I came face to face with this ONCE beautiful hedge… I guess half of it was still great… and the other half? Gone! And in just a few short months!

Now the leaves of boxwood can easily dry out over the winter especially when exposed to a lot of sun and wind. The reason for this is that evergreen leaves (especially broadleaf ones) still lose water to the air, but this water cannot be replaced in the plant since the soil moisture is ‘locked-up’ as ice. However, the scene looked a little more suspicious to me… it was the portion of the hedge leading up to the front door that was affected, while the rest of it came out of the winter unscathed.

My thoughts immediately went to the icy winter that we just weathered here in southern Ontario, and the copious amounts of ice-melter that homeowners needed to throw down just to remain vertical while walking across their properties. Boxwood afterall is not known for it’s exceptional salt tolerance...

So I am in the sleuthing process right now, but my finger is definitely pointing at the ice melter as the possible culprit. To date I have found out that an ‘eco’ ice-melter was used but I have yet to find out which one.

And so the investigation continues…