The snowfall of last week was the heaviest recorded in Ireland since 1949 and left gardeners wondering what was going to be lost, what damaged and what would survive. Our garden is now clear of snow and we have our first opportunity to begin the tidy up after the storm. There were some casualties, no disasters and many signs of promise for the future.
An upright Irish yew, planted over thirty years ago, leaned over under the weight of the snow and brought to a head my thoughts that I had allowed it go too tall. We had wired it to keep it in shape for several years but could not longer reach high enough for this to be effective. With the damage done by the snow there was no possibility of it regaining its tidy shape again and I took to it with saw and secateurs and reduced its height by almost half.




Elsewhere, a colletia of nearly 4 metres has been reduced to its main trunk, the entire crown snapped off by the weight of snow while a Thuga ‘Smaragd’ and Camellia ‘Donation’ lost large branches. All will recover!
These events can lead to an amount of worry but, generally, nature carries on. If something is lost; there will be surely be something so replace it; damage will repair and plants will continue to grow.







I’m so glad to see that your garden survived; you can’t beat snowdrops and hellebores for their resilience!
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The plants generally manage. We don’t really have very cold conditions here with lowest down to -3C only which isn’t too bad compared to other areas and our snow wasn’t all that bad, about 50cm, where they had three to four times that in Co. Wicklow. We will look forward to the sunny days and forget about it.
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