Snow loads
As I write this, we are receiving the first beautiful blanket of snow for the fall/winter season- certainly putting a pause on my fall clean-ups! While there is much to say about autumn tasks and leaf clean-up, I am also going to pause these topics, and take this opportunity instead to talk about… you guessed it… snow!
(Don’t think I can’t hear your grumbles.)
The first snowfall is always beautiful- all our ‘winter interest plants’ are fresh and looking their best…ready to shine or more accurately sparkle, with the added snow- take it in and snap some photos! It’s a magical time of year!
With that said, not all plants receive the snow with open arms- some just crumble under it’s weight. It is one thing for a perennial to flatten to the ground as a result of the weight of heavy snow (it’s OK- it will grow back from the ground in the spring), it is another thing entirely for a woody plant such a tree or shrub to be overloaded with the white stuff and snap. This is damage that the plant will need to rebound from. Aside from a potentially gaping hole in the structure of the plant, the wound is a really nice entry point for disease organisms. All this boils down to one point: we want to protect vulnerable woody plants from the damaging effects of snow loads.
Some shrubs, like the Buddleia (butterfly bush) unphased by a blanket of snow, others like the Taxus (yew) hedge on the right are not so sturdy!
Thankfully this is not a problem that affects every tree and shrub in the garden. I find that the most ‘at risk’ plants are our evergreens. Since these plants hold on to their ‘leaves’ they are also able to hold on to more snow when it falls, and their branches can’t always take that extra weight. The main evergreens that I flag as a concern are:
Boxwood (Buxus spp.)- when they are not routinely clipped they will lack a nice tight structure; in contrast unclipped boxwoods can actually be quite sprawly with weak branches
Upright-growing yews (Taxus spp.) are multi-stemmed (multiple main branches emerging from the base of the plant) and when snow piles up on them the weight can splay the stems in different directions; sometimes the stems bounce back and sometimes they don’t
Upright-growing cedars and junipers (Thuja spp. and Juniperus spp.) can also have multiple stems; if they do, these plants will have similar problems to the yews mentioned above.
The main goal of protecting against snow is to provide some supplemental support to the plant to prevent the branches from snapping or the multiple stems from splaying. This can be accomplished in three ways:
1) Tying up the branches/stems of the plant together so that the branches are able to support one another and there is a reduced area on which the snow can land. To accomplish this, I tie twine to a branch close to the top of the plant, spiral it around the tree/shrub to the bottom and then work my way back up. I pull the branches in toward each other slightly to ensure they are getting some support however I still want the branches to have air flow to prevent disease problems so I don’t pull the branches in too tightly. This twine gets removed in the spring.
2) Erecting a structure that can act as a support when the plant needs it. This approach can be as simple as a small makeshift fence that prevents branches from bending over too far. This tactic works for smaller shrubs.
3) Commit to being on ‘snow patrol’. If you think you have plants that may suffer under the weight of a good dumping of snow (but you live in an area where this is an exception and not the norm), you can always periodically trek outside during a storm and gently brush the snow off the plant to free it from the load. (Who says you can’t garden in the winter?). This is also a great tactic to use when you get caught off-guard with an early season snowstorm!
And there you have it- your first ‘taste’ of winter! We will resume the regularly scheduled ‘fall programming’ with the next post. Hot chocolate, here I come!
YUM. (Photo created by freepik - https://www.freepik.com/free-photos-vectors/christmas)