The Melt

The sun is out and some melting has occurred but it's still very cold, so things are getting iced in even as the sun does its job. Temperaures will warm up later this week, but before that I took a tour to see what things looked like.

The redbud tree survived by dropping all its leaves and now, bare and denuded, it's no longer holding mounds of snow that could break its brittle limbs. Other trees have held their leaves but dropped the snow, like the Japanese maple that looks no worse for its ordeal. In fact, it's beautiful and red now.

Next to the pretty maple the giant mounded juniper is completely buried under snow. I don't know if it has any damage to its arching branches. I expect this to be okay when it is finally revealed.

Big wet cottonwood leaves dot it all over, stuck in the snow, blanketing the driveway and just making a mess.

The tall grasses along the walk have shattered, but I'll cut those back when the snow is gone. The rosemary has some breakage on one side, but it can be pruned.

The Chinese privet by the back fence looks a little droopy but I don't see any damage and it should perk up in time.

The privet by the garage, however, has to go. I'll ask Jeronimo to take it out when I get him back here to clean up leaves later this fall. 

The breakage on this shrub is all on the right side which is under a canale that always thins out the branches when a hard rain comes. Fullness remains on the side that crowds the door. It looks terrible and even with some clean up and pruning it won't be much to look at.

Actually, it never was great. In this shot from an earlier autumn, the lollipop shaped privet just looks dumb. 

It was here when we moved in. I limbed it up, but it does nothing visually against the garage wall, it blocks the door if not trimmed aggressively, and it gets water damage from the canale above it. It will be in the way when the little redbud next to it eventually gets bigger, and . . . 

      . . . meh. It goes.

My poor Red Cascade rose is icicle encased from meltwater coming down from the canale above. I tried to knock off icicles but that just broke some of the canes. 

I have been wanting to train this rose up over the nearby kitchen door canopy, but the damage to the emerging long stems may set that plan back. I'll have to see what's left after conditions warm up, and figure out how to prune this big scrambler in some kind of direction.

The long rambunctious canes of the Peggy Martin rose on my back fence, however, can be chopped all the way back and I'll do that when the snow is gone. It completely fell down off the fence and is lying in a tangle now. Cutting it back won't hurt it.

Most everything else is okay, although a newly planted upright juniper by the patio is standing but branches are all drooped down in a sad, defeated way. It's small and skinny yet. It will grow into itself eventually.

I'll leave you with this closing shot from our front portal of winter in early November:

Kind of beautiful but so wrong for this time of year.