Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
So we had another bad winter (after December) and a ton of snow (record for most snow cover days)
Finally we're getting some melting and noticed an interesting observation on the Holly Trees(cold hardy!) ....
The top half turned copper from the cold but stayed Green at the bottom & Rabbits ate the middle part. Reason was ... There was 1 foot + of snow since end of January.
So the part that stayed under the snowpack stayed nice and green.
The rabbits couldn't get to it so they were on top of the snowpack and ate the middle part of it.
The top was open to the cold air.
If you look close you can see some berries even are still left and the rabbit poop too.
Ugh. We had an extremely dry winter, a total of about 4" of snow, and no rain. That's very unusual for the KC area. I've been starting spring cleanup and suspect I have several 2-year old Knockout roses that are dead to the ground. This really surprises me, but I'll find out if they're alive when I take the pruners to them in a week or so. It's still a bit too early.
Hmm gonna have to take a look at mine today for that top and bottom effect. No rabbits here, so the middle should be good unless the squirrels have taken a liking to Holly leaves. Just came in from filling the bird feeders, and counted eleven of them sitting on my fence waiting for me to turn my back. It's like a furry version of the movie "The birds"
Yes, The weather this past winter here where I live has adversely affected the trees and shrubs, especially the kinds that are near the hardiness limit(In Indianapolis Indiana we are a borderline zone 6a based on the 2012 hardiness zone map) I have noted quite a bit of copper leaves on two Southern Magnolias near a restaurant with the north side of both sapling trees still showing healthy green leaves but not the south side of both trees; not far from those sapling Southern Magnolias, there is a Nellie R. Stevens Holly which was killed down to the roots last winter but yet it came back through root suckering last growing season; the holly bush-let probably has about 50 percent of its leaves which look a lot like the brown leaves on your hollies aka copper brown and burnt from the extreme cold this past winter; the inner parts of that plant are still pretty green though, I guess I will know how much winter injury the Nellie Stevens Holly and The Southern Magnolias sustained by Late May, the coldest low temperature in the city limits of Indianapolis was probably -9 or -10 degrees Fahrenheit for this past winter.
Well we do not have any Rododendron with leaves - the deer took care of that. Then I made the mistake of plowing up snow under our fruit trees. The deer used the new mountains to climb to new heights and strip the bark off the branches. I will try not to make that mistake again - providing our fruit trees survive.
Fortunately our snow is slowly melting and should be gone in a week. Then we can see how much damage was done.
We did not get a winter this year, only 3 days of light frost. I have deciduous trees that only took maybe 4 weeks off for winter before putting new leaves back on. Fruit trees started blooming in mid February. A winter break is essential for many plants and we did not get a winter break to put them to sleep. I noticed last week that peach trees were starting to bloom.
We've got some weird copper coloring going on with all of our junipers, top to bottom. It's all over our area, junipers and pines, not just our yard. It happened last year, too, but I had never seen such a thing prior to last year. Only on the north side of all the plants, not all the way around. Very strange. It went away during the course of the summer and didn't come back until about two months ago. If I recall, it started about this time last year, too, when we started getting warmer weather..
In this area we've had below freezing spells followed by warm ups. If your fruit trees happened to think the warm up was spring, and bloomed, then don't count on much fruit. My trees haven't leafed out yet, but if we don't get any more really cold spells I'm hoping the peach tree has some fruit this year.
The wierd weather seems to have even confused the native plants since they are barely growing. Small enough to snatch out of the yard and into a planter before dreaded mowing time comes.
I bought a 1 foot tall blueberry bush from an online nursery that I put into the ground last fall. The green bare branches looked healthy with reddish buds on them like they are ready to bloom.
Then here in Northern NJ at the end of January through early March, we had a whole bunch of snowstorms that buried the blueberry plant. Since the snowpack melted last week, I have noticed that most of the branches are now brown colored, with only a small area of green close to the base of the plant.
Does that mean the whole plant is dying or will it recover? The blueberry type is Jersey, a northern variety that should be perfect for NJ's winter, right?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
