winter-wallop

Winter Wallop

Ice-encrusted Virginia creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia).

Winter Wonderland?

We were warned. We knew it was coming. The winter solstice fell on December 21, 2013. And then winter welcomed us with a wallop in the form of an ice storm of unprecedented magnitude not seen in this area in recorded history. Ice storms are rare in southern Ontario. Two to four hours of freezing rain at a time, mounting to 17 hours of freezing rain over several days is an example of a typical ice storm. But forty hours plus of freezing rain in one big event? It sounds dramatic. It was. More than 300,000 households representing approximately 750,000 people lost electrical power, just in the City of Toronto with a population of 2.8 million (fourth most populous city in North America).

First the ice and then the snow came.

Ice Storm Cocktail

In winter, bring together three ingredients, i.e., types of precipitation – rain, frozen and mixed. Add an influx of cold air, preferably a polar vortex to create a deep freeze and seal everything with a thick coating of ice. Shake a dusting of snow over top. Best served chilled.

First the ice and then the snow came.

Weather Watching

Wunderground is a very interesting website for weather geeks. Radar Maps can be generated showing time lapse progression of a storm moving through. Hint – click to remove weather stations/temperatures to declutter. At the bottom you can change the date and time to view the progression at many speeds (e.g., 5 or 10x is good). Warning: this site is very addictive. You could spend much time cruising around checking out temperatures and storm events.

Early morning December 22, 2013 as the ice storm cometh and moveth through. Toronto lies in the frozen path. Photo courtesy of Wunderground.

Wither the weather

We have a habit of talking endlessly about the weather. Neighbours and even strangers bond over this. Now with the ice storm, we really had something to talk about. After the storm, when we first greeted people with the preliminary ‘hello', we quickly cut to “did you lose power and for how long?" Invariably, the second question was “did you lose any trees?"

The Storm Aftermath

Once the storm moved through, it was time to survey the damage.

Due to the ice storm effects, my Norway maple became unhinged again. These two cars escaped damage.

In the front yard, the Norway maple (Acer platanoides) dropped another branch. Every major storm event seems to cause it to shed more branches. Last time, my car parked on the driveway suffered the Norway maple slings. This time, it punched out the rear window of a car parked on the street. The ice coating added considerably to the weight of the healthy branch.

Meadowsweet (Spiraea alba) is usually an upright citizen in the garden.

My poor meadowsweet shrub bowed down to the ice storm. I trimmed back some twigs before winter but left three beautiful flower heads which bent right over, two of which froze to the ground.

Meanwhile out back was another story...

Cedars leaning over as if engaged in dance. Upright driveway cedars on left appear to bow to fence-line cedars. (Dec. 22, 11 a.m.)

May I have this dance? Slumped over cedars (R) appear to bow to the sagging branches of upright driveway cedars (L).

I had written about my backyard being surrounding by eastern white cedars (Thuja occidentalis) on the north, south and east sides. Cedar sense around?! Sure felt like it now! The fence-line cedars on the south side had doubled over, almost touching the ground!

Living on the edge?! Definitely! We had to crawl under the vegetation on our hands and knees to get to the garage, only to find the lock frozen! So, we had to keep our curbside compost, recycling and garbage indoors and wait for a thaw.

Where's my birdbath?!!!

The overbearing cedar foliage hid my birdbath and shrubs: dogwoods, nannyberry, witch hazels and American hazel. They were all forced into a downward dogwood pose. I had no idea of their condition. I would have to wait for a thaw to gain access to assess them.

How low can you go? The extra snow added even more weight to the ice entombed cedars.

Misery loves company. To add more to the woodland woes, it snowed which heaped more weight on the already overburdened foliage. The cedars sagged even more.

Now, let's throw in a few wayward tree branches to stir things up...

Not a good sign. The neighbour's tree is missing a few branches. Note the widowmakers caught up in the canopy.

The red oak (Quercus rubra) next door dropped at least five branches. One large branch smashed the top of the fence and struck one of my cedars hard enough to crack the stem. Another large branch fell, crashed through the top of the neighbour's garage roof, ripped the communications lines off the side of their house, dinged another neighbour's car and stripped the upper foliage on a couple of my east side cedars in a domino-like effect.

The unplanted: a temporary addition to the garden. Or a new runway for squirrels?

The unplanted: the branch becomes a temporary addition to the garden (centre) as a new runway for squirrels?

The intruding branch landed in my backyard and was caught up in my neighbour's phone and cable wires, strangling my cedars.

If ever there was a time for a gardener to feel totally helpless, this was it. A number of my cedars were bent right over, all my shrubs were trapped and everything was frozen in place with a 3 cm (over 1″) thick carapace of ice topped with snow. The only thing I could do was shake off the snow, gently so as to not break foliage, buds or branches. It took some of the weight off but I could do nothing about the ice but wait for a thaw.

We had to wait several days, but when the sun returned, the ice started to melt. The cedar foliage was unleashed finally and in turn released the shrubs which had incurred a few broken branches. Overall the stems showed much resilience given the winter stress test.

A miracle! The vegetation sprang back up after the thaw. The bird bath was revealed. Everything on the south side was leaning a little more now. For scale, the screen on the right edge is 2.4 m (8′) high.

So, I wonder about the rest of the neighbourhood and beyond?

To be continued...

Originally published January 26, 2014 on Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens

Tamara says
January 26, 2014 at 8:13 pm

Loved seeing and your story of this cold spell everyone seems to be having. I live in Arizonia so I have been blessed with warm weather.
Thank you for sharing
Until next time
God Bless

marion bartlett says
April 6, 2014 at 6:28 pm

What can I do to restore my bent over cedar hedge…does not appear that these are broken, however, now that the snow has melted off the branches, they are still bent. Can they be straightened ? Shoyld I tie them up again ? I hate to think they should be cut down ….

Trackbacks

Winter Wallop - Native Plants and Wildlife Gard... says:
January 27, 2014 at 1:56 pm

[…] Janet Harrison is the writer and editor of The Local Scoop, e-newsletter for the North American Native Plant Society (NANPS), a volunteer-driven organization dedicated to the study, conservation, cultivation & restoration of North America's Native… […]

Ice Storm in Wildlife Garden says:
February 5, 2014 at 2:46 pm

[…] And our team member Janet Harrison talked about the severe ice storm experienced by the residents of Toronto. […]

Tree Debris (Pt. I) says:
February 26, 2014 at 11:59 pm

[…] were exceptions. Trees which dropped branches damaged healthy trees in a domino effect. In the winter wallop that hit my garden, my neighbour’s red oak dropped large branches which stripped some of the […]