Winters End

The sun is back out and actually feels warm! Too much cold ,too much wind and finally the snow have made a mess of my garden. My Chamaedorea are a mess; the radicalis foliage was broken by the weight of 4" of snow and the microspadix by the incessant wind. All the tall Aspirdistra are wind burned which I will cure with a quick clip of the foliage this weekend to make room for the new growth. The horizontal leaved species are fine.

There have been surprises, the Australians have survived the vagaries of Charleston weather better then I would have thought. The Telopea speciosissima shows only a little leaf burn and the Grevillea victoria 'Murray Valley Red' is undamaged. Both plants have been through two winters with lows of 22 degrees. More surprising is that the summers have not done them in.

If this winter has taught me is that the wind does as much damage as cold can. An example of this are the bamboos. My Bambusa textilis is just fine while the B. textilis 'Scanton', B. eutuloides 'viridi-vittata and B. tuldoides 'ventricosa all suffered defoliation from the wind and cold which had not happened before at comparable temperatures.

Soon everything will leaf out and the winter ravages will just be lessons learned.

Good Gardening