March certainly came in like a lion again this year. Nothing new there. After a couple of days of pretty serious wind storms, I was humming the old song by The Association because it really was windy. In our household the wind usually seems to unnerve the dog more than it bothers me. But this time, I could see why the women of the Great Plains’ Dust Bowl in the 1930’s would go mad with the constant wind blowing. I realize it was never that bad here and we only had sustained winds for a couple of days with breaks in between, but still it was, at times, very unsettling.
So when the sun came out and the weather improved for even a few hours, it was a welcome respite. In fact, there were three afternoons in a row that I could get out in the garden for an hour or two. This time, instead of weeding or cutting the grass, I used the opportunity of a break in the weather to assess any damage from the wind.
Our little garden has three very large and very old alders on it. And I expect twigs and branches to be broken from them after every windstorm. I am rarely disappointed and this time was no different as I picked up several medium-sized alder branches and lots and lots of twigs and sticks. We were lucky; I think it would have been worse if the winds had come after the trees had leafed out as there would have been more surface to catch the winds. This time it wasn’t too bad.
But I was sad to see several large branches from my Choisya ternata (Mexican Orange Blossom) had been severely damaged by the wind. The branches had actually split about 12 inches along their length and were lying on top of a small, weeping Japanese maple called Acer palmatum ‘Green Dragon.’ Another bit of good luck here as the ‘Green Dragon’ had only started to leaf out a tiny bit and didn’t seem to be damaged by its neighbor’s heavy branches.
In order to get to the Choisya to prune it back, I first had to cut back a rather large sword fern so I could get into the middle of the Mexican Orange. Not really a problem, though, as I generally cut back my sword ferns in mid-March before the fiddleheads start to unfurl. This allows the fresh new growth to emerge unimpeded by the old fronds.
I then got out my large pruning loppers out and sharpened them. This is a task I normally would do later in the spring, but I didn’t want to use dull blades on stressed branches, so a little sandpaper along the blade did the trick. I cut back the split branches, moving closer toward the base another six inches or so along the branches so I was able to prune below the split areas. I found an area where a healthy branch was joined to the main trunk and cut just above the healthy branch at about a 45-degree angle.
In the end, I took off three heavy branches, leaving about six more that had not broken. I don’t like to prune more than one-third off any shrub or tree at one time to keep from stressing it further, so this was a good ratio. Sadly, those three branches meant I took a large amount of the spring blossoms off the bush, too, but the plant will be better for it in the long run. Leaving those split branches would have opened the door for insects and diseases to enter the wounded areas. Having made a nice, clean cut will help avoid that. The bush will heal itself faster from a clean cut.
I could almost hear the ‘Green Dragon’ maple heaving a sigh of relief after the Choysia branches were lifted from its crown. This became a win-win situation as cutting back some of the Choysia will allow the maple to get more air and sunlight, and it will help the Choysia by stimulating some new growth from the base.
There was very little other damage from the winds, which is nice to report. I guess most of the other vulnerable plants had been affected in December, January, and February and cleaned up then. But I certainly am looking forward to March “going out like a lamb.”
Comments