More snowstorm damage

As the snow has melted off, more of the damage to trees and shrubs has been revealed. A large branch on my fig tree was ripped nearly off, and now I can see that the wound is pretty deep into the main stem. We've called an arborist to see if the tree can be saved.

And there's the arborvitae. I didn't know that they are often multi-stemmed - the one I learned in my woody plants class had a single stem. At any rate, the multiple stems all sagged in different directions under the weight of the snow - something not so dramatically evident till the snow was mostly gone.

The upside to this destruction is that I have more and more excuses to go shopping for native plants as replacements!

Big snow - the aftermath

We are still living with mountains of snow, albeit no longer the beautiful white fluffy stuff, but dirty old snow. As it slowly melts, damage to trees and shrubs continues to be revealed. My fig tree took a hit; one large branch is broken though still attached to the main trunk. We may have the tree service prune the limb off neatly when they come for other cleanup.

I'm happy that some of my less loved shrubs may be damaged after resting under heavy snow and ice for some time. I'm hoping that storm damage will make it easier to kill these non-natives off: nandina, privet, burning bush. The nandina was encased in ice for awhile that dripped from large icycles. That seems to have melted, and I'm afraid it looks surprisingly perky under the snow. One can only hope it may be weakened, at least, and a little easier to take out.