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Heavy Snow Damage to Your Garden Trees & Shrubs What can you do? The record-breaking snowstorms of 2009-2010 have left a lot of damaged trees and shrubs throughout our region. Many are asking what they can do, now that the snow has melted enough to see and evaluate the extent of that damage. Here is what you should consider in assessing the damaged plants. 1. We hope many of you have followed the advice of many plant experts that you should not try to remove the heavy snow covering your plants. The branches that are already severely damaged may not matter as much as branches with minor breaks or those that are merely bent under the weight of the snow. The act of removing the snow now will often cause more damage to these minor problems and make them more serious and possibly irreparable. Be patient and let all the snow on top of the plants melt down by itself. 2. Broken branches are usually not worth trying to bind up. The damaged branches should be pruned off below the point of the break, just above an outward-pointing leaf bud. Shrubs and trees do not “heal” like tissue in animals, but new branches will emerge in the spring to fill in the open spaces left by the pruned branches. 3. Major breaks in older branches of shrubs and trees, or at the trunk of trees are often difficult to replace by new growth. They are almost impossible to mend on their own. If you have a serious split at the junction of critical main branches or to the trunk itself, these will need more than just first aid. But you can take action to keep the split from getting worse and , at the same time, attempt to cinch the living tissue of the cambium layers to together so that they have a chance to mend. This can be done by wrapping a tape around the circumference of the break to join the two halves of the split branches or trunk. The tape has to be strong enough to keep the split halves of the damaged branch tightly joined. The tape will have to have some “give” so it does not cut into or “girdle” the tree, cutting off the vital nutrients and water paths connecting the branches to the roots. A good choice for that tape would be vinyl stretch tie, which is made of a ribbon of vinyl plastic in a spool. The tape can be doubled or tripled to increase its strength, but it will still stretch enough to prevent girdling. This is a temporary, but an important first step in saving the plant at the break point. The next step requires expert advice and assistance. A brace may be necessary to keep the break point together for the long term. This will require the insertion of a metallic pin to secure the break permanently. This method should be performed by a trained arborist. You should get the opinion of a trusted tree service expert as to the feasibility of doing this for your particular situation. 4. Branches which have been bent over, but not broken, can be mended by tying them back or gathering them in until the branch resumes it normal growth pattern as the growing season progresses. This can be done to evergreen shrubs that have splayed out branches. A single long piece of heavy twine can be tied to the top of a Leyland Cypress or Arborvitae and wound around the plant in a descending spiral. This will gather in all the branches and hold them securely in the original shape of the shrub. Heavy lower branches can be supported by simple crutches made of wood, which can be propped up beneath sagging branches in several places. These ties and support should be applied soon and left in place until the fall, when they can be removed or kept though the following winter. |
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