Winter was brutal on the plants this year.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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So the snow is finally gone, and spring is here. It seems like the local flora got hit much harder than normal this last winter.

Oh, there’s the usual victims: our decorative grass spike died, like it does every winter despite our best efforts to protect it. But I’m struck at how many vines seem to have died. All around our neighborhood fences, trees, and walls are covered with vines that look like they didn’t survive. Many still have their leaves from last fall (brown & dead, of course).

One of my neighbors trees looks like it died. This is a big, mature tree, probably around 40-50 feet tall, and it doesn’t have a single leaf or bud on it. Last week, I saw a woodpecker pecking on it. It’s probably finished.

I’m starting to get a little worried about the Japanese maple in my front yard. It has little buds, but they’ve been there for a few weeks and don’t seem to be getting any bigger. I’m wondering if a late cold snap we had earlier this month might be to blame. I really like that tree; I hope it’s OK.

OTOH, The tiger lillies in the garden are fine. Those things could survive a direct nuclear strike. They’re like crab grass, but prettier :slight_smile:

2

At the place I’m renting, the landlord put in 3 azalea bushes.
1 of them that’s sheltered from the wind, nestled against the house & front porch is doing great. She’s blooming her little heart out.
2 of the other bushes are against the front of the house, but 1 got the full brunt of the cold snap & wind & the buds are still on the bush, but it’s doing nothing.
The other one also has the same issue, but the very back of it that’s protected from the wind is blooming it’s heart out.

My potted cedar tree was left out & he gave a big middle finger to the cold snap & is thriving despite it’s cold tolerance supposedly being 1 zone higher.

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This side of the big pond (Switzerland) the winter was exceptionally mild - the geraniums survived winter on my balcony! Right now, apple trees are flowering.

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Even Record cold, and record snowfall weren’t harsh enough. :mad:

I bought a house last fall, and the yard was a mess of things. I hoped most of them would die. But crap is poking up all over the place through my weak attempt to reseed the lawn as a lawn.

5

In the Chicago area – and I assume elsewhere – evergreens were hit hard. Lots of mature trees just dead on one side or smaller yews and arborvitaes completely fried. I work for a landscape company and you can’t even find decent stuff at the nurseries as they were all hit just as bad and their stock killed over the winter (or close enough to be unsellable).

The yews in front of my house thankfully managed to scrape through with just a bit of brown on one side. I’m hoping they’ll flush back out after I trim them back a little.

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The mature fig tree in my backyard appears to be a victim of the polar vortex. That tree was one of the reasons I bought the house and something I looked forward to every July and August. :frowning: I’m going to give it a few more weeks in the hopes that it isn’t really dead. After that, I’ll have to cut it down and plant a new one. Maybe I’ll take the opportunity to move it to the other side of the deck.

I was hoping that it might have taken out the pampas grass, but no luck there.

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We were just talking about this last weekend when we were putting mulch down. We lost 2 bridal veil bushes that were nearly 20 years old. The neighbors lost their creeping ivy. The azaleas all made it, thank goodness.

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Our big, old Sugar Maple in the front yard isn’t doing too well. The woodpeckers are turning it into sawdust. I’m just assuming there’s something wrong with it, if they’re doing that.

The Pink Viburnum (That I’ve been babying for several years) finally started to bloom the other day. So pretty!

The Spirea is doing fine, as usual. My grandparents planted that bush probably 60 or 70 years ago. It was a start they got from my grandmother’s mother.

The rosebushes are doing well, as are the Tiger Lilies. I’m surprised that the Lilac bush is doing as well as it is, too.

The Easter Lilies came up on time, and bloomed beautifully. They still are blooming, actually. The Crocuses came up, bloomed, and they’re mostly all gone, now.

The Resurrection Lilies are starting to send their leaves up out of the ground. Of course, they won’t send up any blooms until later this summer.

I’ve even got some ground-cover vines that are sprouting up, and a few other plants have survived in their pots. The Mums didn’t make it, though. I’m starting to think the Sweet Peas didn’t make it, either. They’ve been here as long as the Spirea.

My Chives have returned, and are growing well. I’ve already cut them back last week, and made a nice batch of chive butter with them.

We had record snow, and record cold, in my area of west central Indiana this past winter.

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Update: the Japanese maple seems to be doing fine now. Some hedges around the neighborhood are spouting leaves in a few places, but still seem to be largely dormant.

The vines look like they may well be goners, except for a few lucky/hardy ones in a few places. The neighbor’s tree still shows no signs of life, and by now I’m pretty sure it’s history.

Also, we have 2 Rose of Charon bushes that haven’t yet shown any signs of life, and I’m getting worried about them. It would be a shame if we lost them.

10

Portland is having a huge pollen problem with all the flowering going on. Our dogwood is spectacular and the peonies are enormous this year. It was a fairly mild winter, with a couple of weeks of freezing weather.

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We were in the polar vortex, with our coldest night bottoming out at -23F. Not as cold as the worst at my parents’ house 500 miles north, -43F, but bad enough.

My sage and Munstead lavender aren’t coming back. The hummingbird mint might be gone, too. Otherwise things survived and are almost thriving this spring. Dandelions especially are having a great year.

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My forsythia is alive, of course, but it had only two or three yellow flowers this spring, and I notice that no one else’s in town bloomed with the abundance of yellow I usually see in the spring. Friends in Indiana mentioned theirs went right to the green leaves, too. I always look forward to the forsythia blooming; this year was a dud.

My hydrangeas are just starting to show a leaf or two, which is a relief because I really thought they were dead, but the Japanese maple looks good and is in full leaf.

13

We had our coldest winter in our time here (central Ohio), with numerous subzero lows, bottoming out at -19F.

Most everything in my yard has come back well (it’s too soon to tell about the heavily mulched crepe myrtles and hardy banana).

I see some casualties at my workplace planting (Knockout roses and Pennisetum (ornamental grass)).

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Our plants look fine, but we hope the stinkbug population was decimated.

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The grape arbor I’d built to hold up my grape vine (which was here and a huge mess when I bought the house) fell over last fall, so I had to trim the vine down very, very far to be able to clean it all up and throw the pieces of arbor away. The plan was to build a new arbor this spring.

But…I don’t see a sign of life anywhere on the vine. It was exposed all winter, whereas usually it’d just be a pile of dead leaves and vines. Oops.

I’m having a landscaper come by for something else next week. Was going to ask him to build a new arbor too but I guess I’ll get a quote on digging up the vine and planting something else. Also might as well get rid of the dead tree that was next to the vine, on which the vine grew and made it look like a live tree.

Sigh.

16

My beloved dogwood and magnolia look ready to bloom, but the blooms are sparse.

The forsythia is getting leaves, but only one little branch has flowers. Most people don’t even have that much.

I’ve got two spears of asparagus so far; I’m hoping the rest is just late, rather than dead.

I’ve got a swath of spring bulbs (white crocuses, white daffodils, pale pink and orange tulips) all the way across my front yard. Not a lot of crocuses this year; daffodils are better. And the tulips? Out of hundreds, some have leaves but no buds. There’s only one bud, and it looks like it’s the wrong color.

My little Japanese maple looks fine.

Lots of day lilies coming up. Even this winter wasn’t enough to kill them.

The weeds have come back with a vengeance. Lots of dandelions, already in bloom; I don’t mind them.

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My roses of sharon aren’t looking so good, either, now that you mention it.

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I have to Scottish Broom shrubs which don’t look like they’re going to make it. I’m heartbroken about it, as it was one of the first things Hallboy and I planted when I bought the house and they’re simply beautiful late spring.

Otherwise, the lilacs are blooming, the blackberry bushes are sprouting, and everything else is coming up. My peach and cherry trees even have buds (first time! Hope it means I’ll get fruit this year.)