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The Winter
of
Eight Moons
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It might have been the name
native Americans would have given to the Wyobraska
winter of 2009-2010—the winter of eight moons.
Eight full moons after the first snowstorm in early
October of 2009, Wyobraskans awoke on May 12, of
2010 to a very winter-like landscape and brought out
the snow shovels yet one more time to clear several
inches of heavy wet snow from sidewalks and
driveways. Other than a few broken branches on
trees that were already leafed out for summer, this
mid-May winter storm probably did little other
damage—except perhaps to the psyche of the residents
of a region that is long past tired of winter. |
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I
suspect that the damage to evergreen trees and to
some shrubs is from those same two October storms,
but from a slightly different type of injury. Many
shrubs, especially summer blooming shrubs like hardy
shrub roses and butterfly bush were only in the very
early stages of entering dormancy when the first of
the two October storms struck, and it appears as
though there may have been significant stem and
branch freezing injury as a result. A few of this
type of shrub that I have looked at in recent weeks
are not leafing out at all. Most are leafing out
from very near the ground, with what appears to be
significant branch die-back. |
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Previous Articles
A
Loooooong Winter
March 10
Just Dirt
March 18
Horse Manure & Hot Air
March 25
Mulch
to do this Spring
April 01
Creating Long Term
Tree-lationships
April 15
Spring Blooming
Shrubs & Trees
April 22
New
and Improved
Nebraska Arbor Day
April 29
A Normal
Spring
May 6
2009
Articles
2008 Articles
2007 Articles
2006 Articles
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Recent travels around the
region, though, have revealed that “the winter of
eight moons” will have left significant damage to
landscape plants in its wake. The full extent of
the damage will not be known for several more weeks,
but one can already see greater than normal winter
loss to pine trees, many widely used landscape
shrubs, and shade and ornamental trees. The “long,
cold winter” is likely to get the blame for the
so-called winter kill that is now showing up and
will be even more evident in the next few weeks, but
I suspect that most of the blame should be placed
squarely on the two October 2009 blizzards that
brought unusually cold temperatures, strong winds,
and heavy snow to landscapes not yet prepared for
winter.
It may surprise some readers to
say that the past winter was not particularly
cold—at least in terms of absolute low
temperatures. Other than one mid winter spell where
morning temperatures dropped to around 20 or 25
degrees below zero, there were relatively few winter
nights where the temperatures even dropped down to
10 degrees above zero. Those are not winter time
temperatures that are likely to do any damage at all
to fully winter-ready landscape plants in
Wyobraska. But the two October storms struck the
region’s landscapes even before the leaves of many
shrubs and deciduous trees had begun to turn fall
color and to form the seal between leaf and branch
that causes the leaf to separate from the stem at
its appointed time in the fall. You may remember
that the snow you shoveled from your sidewalks last
October most likely contained a large number of
still green leaves that had been stripped from
nearby trees by the heavy, wet snow. Whatever
injury was done to deciduous trees this past winter
is likely due to injury resulting from the premature
leaf drop caused by those two October storms.
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My suggestion is to watch these
plants for another few weeks and then plan on
spending a few hours in your landscape doing a
little spring pruning. Most of the hardy shrub
roses should be back to a significant size in your
landscape and blooming by early summer. I suspect
that some of the butterfly bushes may not fare so
well and will need to be replaced. I encourage you
to not give up on butterfly bush after an eight moon
winter—it’s a fast grower, a great summertime
bloomer, and unsurpassed for attracting butterflies
to your garden or landscape.
The most surprising, to me, of
winter losses in the landscape, is to some pretty
“hardy” evergreen trees—pine and juniper.
Completely brown pines and juniper can be seen here
and there in landscapes and windbreaks around the
region. There will be no recovery for these
trees. Once again, I suspect that the early fall
storms froze needles and/or stems that were not yet
prepared for winter temperatures—with fatal
results. Fortunately, the number of pine and
juniper affected appear to be relatively
minor—unless, of course, it was your pine or juniper
that is completely brown this spring.
On a positive note, while
difficult Wyobraska winters always teach us about a
few plants that won’t survive in our landscapes,
those same difficult winters also end up teaching us
some surprising lessons about plants that come
through those same winters completely or relatively
unscathed. My prediction is that in the next few
weeks we will be finding that the winter of eight
moons will end up producing as many pleasant
surprises as disappointments.
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