Monday, December 26, 2022

This was not the Christmas I was looking for...

The storm that snarled travel across the nation did not leave my holiday untouched. We'd planned a long weekend with family up in Spokane, our first Christmas without my dad. Sadly that didn't happen. Late last week Portland was hit with the coldest temperatures we've seen since the winter of 2013/14, and ice, flights out of Portland were cancelled. These photos are from the afternoon of the 23rd. 

Pyrrosia hastata is curled in response to the cold.

The white you see in these photos isn't snow, it's a thick layer of ice pellets with about a quarter inch of ice on top.

Pyrrosia lingua and variegated Aspidistra elatior.

The effect looked a little like a sugar coating.

I moved all the containers I could lift to the shade pavilion greenhouse, and covered a few things in the ground. Most everything was left to fend for itself though, like my Sinopanax formosanus.

Some of the smaller rhododendron leaves roll up so tight in the cold they look like cigars, Rhododendron sinogrande just endures.

Magnolia laevifolia and an astelia, fingers crossed for all of the astelia. We were below freezing day and night for almost 72 hours. In my experience that's a deadly length of time. Many plants can shrug off a dip to 19F (which was my low) as long as it rises to above freezing during the day.

I completely forgot about this Pseudopanax laetus, which is borderline hardy even in the ground and this one is in a container. Damn. That orange wall looks warm though doesn't it?

Stachyurus salicifolius, Eriobotrya japonica (loquat) and Podocarpus macrophyllus 'Miu'. These should all be fine.

Candied Adiantum venustum fronds are almost unrecognizable.

The pastel shades of iced sarracenia are sugary sweet.



As I mentioned with the rhododendrons, several broadleaf evergreens in the garden respond to the cold with curling of their leaves, here the variegated daphniphyllum.

Curling Mahonia eurybracteata leaves mimicking the black mondo grass, Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens', beneath it.

Here's an ice coated leaf from the neighbor's laurel.

Saxifraga, epimedium, pyrrosia, and Agave bracteosa... all coated in ice.

Extremely high winds ushered in the drop in temperatures, they also tore the tetrapanax leaves right off their petioles. Somehow the Agave victoriae-reginae bloom spike (with seeds) remained upright.

The agave itself looks rather porcupine-like

The frozen layers were so hard you could walk on them without leaving any prints, even in the lawn.

Grevillea rivularis and sempervivum.

I covered some of the agaves, but not all of them. Tough love for this guy...

Black mondo, Ophiopogon planiscapus 'Nigrescens'.

I have this theory that many times I do more damage trying to help than I would have done leaving things alone. Take these agaves for example, I dragged them closer to the house hoping that would give them a little projection. We don't really have eaves to speak of but every bit helps right? 

Well unless you put them right under the gutters that are full of ice and once it starts to warm up they're dripping very cold water over the edge right onto the agaves you were trying to protect. Water that freezes when the temperature cools again.

The trunking cordylines ice up well and then the leaves shed the ice with the slightest movement. These are descendants of originals planted in 2006. The plants have died back to the ground and regrown from their roots many times now. I wonder if they'll die back again with this cold snap?

I kind of liked the splayed out leaves on Archtostaphylos 'Monica', they're bending under the ice load. Usually they're very erect.

I completely forgot to move this hanging container. I didn't even look up and see it until taking these photos Friday afternoon.

Saturday, Christmas Eve we received more freezing rain. This is the view of the top of the hanging planter from inside the house. Yep, agaves and cactus love to be in frozen water.

A friend had his gutters break off under the weight of the ice, here's how our garage roof looked from the bedroom window, luckily our gutters held.

Holman, my adopted Yucca rostrata, spent the entire event standing in the driveway, I think he'll be okay.

Things got pretty wet and slippery as the top layer of ice started to melt late Saturday afternoon, although it's still not all gone as I type at 4:30 on Christmas. Schefflera brevipedunculata...

Trachycarpus fortunei 'Wagnerianus'

Drama queen bamboo

Iced over aspidistra.

Daphniphyllum macropodum

We kept our power through the cold, so we had heat. There was plenty of food in the house and all of our loved ones were tucked safely inside their own homes, so while it wasn't the Christmas weekend I hoped for, it wasn't a disaster.

Only time will tell how the plants respond to the cold. I'll sign off with a before and after of the stock tanks behind the garage, the ones full of shady treasures. I took this first photo on December 6th. 

Here's what they looked like after I had them all wrapped up, protected from the cold and ice. Fingers crossed! So what was the weather like for you this holiday weekend?


All material © 2009-2022 by Loree L Bohl for danger garden. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited and just plain rude.

28 comments:

  1. My potted sinopanax was moved into the shed, along with all the Echeveria agavoides. I left outside a potted Mangave 'Whale Tale' which looks ok. But it was 67 in the house this morning, balmy! So it's definitely warming up, and the warmish rain is bringing some of the plants out of their cold wilt (melianthus for one). Lots of booming wind last night. So useful to hear your experienced, calm account of these lows! And now I've gotta remember to check our gutters next time too!

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    1. Smart move to move those echeveria! Did you get ice pellets/freezing rain out there?

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  2. After the ice storm passed through Seattle, I knew to expect this post from you, as Portland always gets it worse. My garden came through unscathed. I only have a tiny echeveria setosa set oliver to protect, which I cover with a plastic bowl.
    The look of Pyrrosia hastata is heartbreaking. I do hope it unfurls when the ice is gone. I didn't realize you grow variegated daphniphyllum... it too looks rather sad but still with vibrant colors. No brown is good.
    It's shocking how quickly the temps bounced to around 50°... I'd love to know how you plants look after the ice melted.
    Chavli

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    1. From what I could see online you all got the ice worse than we did, but then you also warmed up much faster. The pyrrosia looks fine now, thank goodness. I'll definitely be doing an "after the storm" post soon.

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  3. Many of these photos have their own severe beauty, but I sensed your worry and anxiety throughout. I would be a nervous wreck. I already don't like winter, but this would send me over the edge.

    I hope there will be many positive surprises once you're able to assess the damage.

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    1. With everything else I'm kinda just rolling with the punches now. Que sera, sera...

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  4. What a horrible Christmas present. However, it's surprising how resilient plants can be. We were very lucky in our Christmas weather. After a horrible cold snap leading into the holidays our area went into a Chinook (warming winds) while just slightly to the north freezing rain and snow. I hope the horrible weather didn't ruin your day. Gerhard is right, there is a lot of beauty in your photos.

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    1. Glad to hear you lucked out, weather-wise!

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  5. This sure was a rough one. I covered some fragile echiums and my Melianthus, but it’s too soon to tell their fate. The lowest temperature I saw in my neighborhood by Providence hospital was 18.
    Hope 2023 is good for your garden and soul.
    Jim N. Tabor

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    1. Let me know how your echium end up doing. I covered two, both Echium wildpretii. At first glance one of them looks like it might pull thru. We shall see!

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  6. OUCH!!! I hope the majority of your plants prove to be resilient in one way or another. The ice does look deceptively like sugar.

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    1. Glad I'm not the only one to see the sugar effect!

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  7. I guess I'll stop whining about the mid 20 mornings that have persisted for so long here-I feel bad for you ! And an upended Christmas to boot. Hope this is the worst of it for you this winter. I'm looking forward to a week of rain so no more freezing temps here for awhile.

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    1. It is tempting to wonder about the rest of the winter. It seems to be the pattern now that we get a late snow/ice/cold event. Maybe we're off the hook this year?

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  8. Thanks for documenting your experience. Here, in Central NJ, we've been below freezing since 1pm Friday and won't rise above until Tuesday afternoon. That includes a dip on Friday from the low 50s to single digits. Yikes!

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    1. Wow, that's a steep drop! Poor plants (and people). Finger's crossed you don't see too much damage.

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  9. Oops! Forgot to include my name on my comment re. New Jersey's conditions.

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  10. emily freebirdDecember 26, 2022

    Thanks for sharing these, and your wonderful idea of how to protect plants in stock tanks! Did you have the Pyrrosia in the last bad ice storm two years ago? Mine look similarly curled-up and I'm wondering if they will bounce back or not.

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    1. I've had that pyrrosia in that spot since 2013, so it's seen a lot. I think it (and hopefully yours) will be fine.

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  11. Goodness, I can’t even fathom such weather! The efforts you go to in order to protect your precious plants are admirable. I hope the damage will be minimal and that your favourite things, in particular, get through ok.

    I have been moving and covering plants here too, but for a different reason: it’s 39 degrees C (102 degrees f) here today. Yuck.

    Horticat

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    1. I hope your plants do well in that heat!

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  12. Wow, that's really some ice! I am glad you are safe and did not experience any power cuts. We have been seeing about your awful snow storms here from the UK. Nothing on quite the same scale, but still cold for the usually mild Cornwall - a fair few of my succulents in my greenhouse are now slushy mush after the thaw out. When I lived up in Yorkshire, we used to have real snow. My 5 ft tall Cordyline succumbed to the three month long snow, but did re-shoot from the bottom. Thank you for sharing these fascinating photos and fingers crossed for your beautiful plants x (p.s. Lulu of Long Mizzle again - blogger really wants me to be anon today!)

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    1. Blogger needs to play nice! Thanks for ID'ing yourself. Aren't those cordylines tenacious!?

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  13. Ugh. We’ve had a week of snow, insane cold and wind. Hopefully the snow cover will protect a lot. Very subdued Christmas. You probably know the Epimedium and Himalayan fern will be fine. Mine have been through this a lot. But maybe I will go look at my Rhodie.

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  14. I was visiting family in Portland over the holiday, thankfully our flights were not delayed/cancelled. That was a whole other level of COLD! I'm worried now about all the rain we're getting (9b, east bay CA) this week -especially for my back "dry garden". I have some tarps up over the blue torches Pilosocereus Azureus, they are the absolute pickiest drama queens and will rot.

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  15. Luckily, no ice or snow in northern Virginia, but consecutive nights of 6 and 7F. tested Schefflera delavayi, fatsia, grevillea, and others that have not experienced anything below 12 degrees in recent winters. With milder temps all appear undamaged.

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