February 08, 2023
Most individuals’s gardens get shadier over time. Mine is rising sunnier. Excessive climate occasions over the previous 15 years — droughts, hotter summers, and Snowpocalypse — have pressured and thinned the tree cover in my backyard. Every week in the past, on February 1st, Austin took one other pummeling when an ice storm struck. Arbormageddon, native wags quickly dubbed it.
It wasn’t all that chilly — a level or two under freezing — besides, greater than a half-inch of ice encrusted Austin’s timber. Reside oaks maintain their leaves all winter. Weighed down with ice, and pressured from excessive climate over the previous few years, a lot of them couldn’t bear the pressure. For 2 days and an evening we winced to listen to timber cracking, limbs snapping, and crashing thuds throughout our home.
Timber throughout town additionally fell onto energy strains, sending properties and companies into days of darkness and chilly. On our block, 6 days crept by earlier than energy was restored. After seeing the injury throughout city, I’m sure that Austin Vitality’s crews and people borrowed from different cities had been working as quick and as arduous as they may, in harmful situations, to get energy strains again up.
We’re fortunate that our home and automobiles, deck and patio had been largely untouched. A couple of fencing panels sustained injury, and we misplaced an A/C unit.
About 50% of my understory timber, like this red-berried possumhaw, had been crushed by falling limbs. However the agaves, large yuccas, bottle tree, and stucco partitions survived. It was dangerous however may have been a complete lot worse.
Alongside our road, damaged reside oaks seemed as if a small twister had whirled by means of.
Timber in my neighbor’s yard
Crape myrtles held up nicely total. This one at a neighbor’s home was pretty all frosted with ice.
Whereas unhappy about our timber, I discovered moments to understand, like my driveway border, trying fairly even in late winter and beneath a layer of ice. No timber right here to crush something! Hooray for decorative grasses, yuccas, purple skullcap, and ‘Powis Citadel’ artemisia.
Pine muhly (Muhlenbergia dubia), considered one of my tough-as-nails favorites, coated in ice
Whale’s tongue agaves (Agave ovatifolia) sailed by means of the ice storm, as did pink yuccas (Hesperaloe parviflora). The Anacacho orchid tree in again bent to the bottom beneath the ice however has already straightened up. The toothless sotol within the metal pipe could also be a goner although; it didn’t like December’s Arctic freeze both.
Squid agave (Agave bracteosa) can simply deal with low 30s temps and ice, even in a pot. The Japanese maple bent however didn’t break — and fortunately falling reside oak limbs missed it.
My husband spent the weekend sawing and hauling limbs and stacking them alongside the road. I did the identical with smaller limbs on Monday. On Tuesday our tree man arrived and spent your complete day eradicating harmful damaged limbs from the cover in addition to gigantic limbs on the bottom that had been too large for us to simply deal with.
How issues seemed all through our yard earlier than all of the cleanup
The Texas mountain laurel my daughter grew from seed — which had principally recovered from Snowpocalypse injury — took a direct hit from an enormous reside oak department.
Half of it was snapped off, and the opposite aspect is now leaning at a 45-degree angle. I believe it’ll reside although. We’ll stake it to attempt to get it upright once more.
The owl field tree misplaced about half its cover. One large department landed within the pool. One other on the stucco wall. The chairs and wall had been spared – yay!
One other angle exhibits the extent of injury to the tree.
An enormous limb got here down on the opposite aspect of the backyard however missed the shed and bottle tree. Two of the boxwood balls sustained some damaged branches, however no less than they’re nonetheless standing.
This cluster of reside oaks, which had been recovering from having their root zone buried way back, misplaced important branches. I hope they’ll be OK. A metallic arbor (mendacity within the foreground) took a direct hit that broke it.
This house goes to be a lot sunnier and warmer this summer season. However which means completely different crops to strive. I’d been leaning towards planting sedge in my stock-tank planter. However now, with much less shade, I’m contemplating silver ponyfoot in any case.
In the meantime, till town picks up our Arbormageddon pile or our tree man can get to it, we’re having fun with our newly fortressed residence. This 6-foot-tall pile of stacked limbs (doesn’t embody the total day of cuttings our tree man hauled off) stretches all the best way alongside our road frontage, from right here alongside the island mattress…
…to the property line on the opposite aspect of the driveway.
If solely it may hold out the deer, it could be a worthy commerce – hah!
Pruning broken oaks? Do that to keep away from spreading oak wilt, which kills timber
When you have ice-damaged oak timber, particularly reside oaks or pink oaks, right here’s what you have to know. The tree illness oak wilt is deadly to most reside oaks and pink oaks that get it, and it spreads simply from a sick tree to a wholesome one. The fungus that causes oak wilt spreads in two methods: 1) underground by means of interconnected tree roots and a couple of) above floor through a beetle that’s interested in tree sap (from cuts and wounds) and is most lively from February by means of June in Central Texas.
We’re at present within the do-not-prune months for reside oaks to stop the unfold of oak wilt. Clearly, you have to lower harmful hanging branches out of your timber proper now so that they don’t fall on you or passersby. Get this achieved as quickly as doable, and ensure these cuts are instantly sealed with paint — proper when the lower is made to stop the beetle from stepping into it.
However don’t prune all of the ugly tears and amputated limbs in your oaks proper now. The timber may have sealed off these wounds inside the first few days of damage. Slicing these now simply opens your timber to oak wilt publicity. Schedule non-emergency, aesthetic pruning in July or later. Late fall is finest, when timber are now not summer-stressed. Right here in Central Texas, oak pruning needs to be achieved July by means of January, when the oak wilt beetle is much less lively. Additionally, bear in mind to sanitize pruning instruments earlier than beginning and between timber to stop the oak wilt fungus from spreading from tree to tree.
Click on right here for more information about oak wilt and learn how to stop its unfold.
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Make plans to attend the Budding Out Plant Sale & Competition on March 18 on the John Fairey Backyard in Hempstead, TX. Uncommon and distinctive crops shall be supplied, in addition to artwork, ceramics, jewellery, meals, drink, music, and different leisure for the entire household. Members have early entry and get in free. Non-member admission is $5. Kids 12 and beneath are free.
Expertise the Surreal Backyard at Zilker Botanical Backyard, a fascinating neon-art show all through the gardens, with food and drinks, music and dancing, surreal performers, and interactive artwork sculptures. Surreal costumes inspired! 25% of occasion proceeds profit the Zilker Botanical Backyard Conservancy. Runs April 6 (VIP Evening), April 7-8, and April 13-15, from 6:30 pm to 11 pm.
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