Garden Casualties from our Severe Winters

kylith

littlebug wrote: »

I lost solanum, ceononothus, cottoneaster, clematis.

2x Pyracantha are the only things along the back wall of the garden that survived

Pyracantha are impossible to kill. I've tried dismemberment, flaying, and salt so far. The thing's like the bloody hydra.

yellowlabrador

Here in West Cork, I lost all my fushias, all my australian and new zealand plants, rosemary, several dalias (which normally overwinter) and quite a few lilies, compare this to the glory days of the early naughties.
My banana, that overwintered outside 2 winters when it got too big to drag inside



It was grown from seed

kilco

My phormiums are looking a bit dead different kinds but they'e are about 2 spikes alive in each one ,red robin also a bit battered but hanging in there the local nursery told my sister to put some 10 10 20 on red robin so I've just but a little bit of that on most of my shrubs and watered it in and fingers crossed

slowburner

The Griselinias around here (s. Wicklow) survived until late March but then began to die off. There was no initial yellowing, like the Griselinia disease you might see in suburban hedging - they just suddenly lost all their leaves over the course of a few days.

Wibbs

Nonmonotonic wrote: »

What I am amazed at, with all the distruction, is the fact that no Magnolia I know of has perished. I was always under the opinion that they struggle to survive in Ireland at the best of times.

Really? I understood they could take pretty low temps. Well the deciduous variety anyway. What's surprising me are tales of Gingkos dying off. They're another pretty hardy tree. They certainly grow in places far colder on average than Ireland. My two are going well, though this year very late to bud. My chinese fan palms were the real weirdos of the bunch though. My one cordyline dead as a dodo, my yucca ditto, but the fan palms grew more this year inc during the snow and the male is already in flower :eek: Alll my tree ferns are dead though :(

magicbastarder

herself's dad has a 25-30 year old eucalyptus which has developed an inch wide crack in the bark about three foot from the ground, and when you knock on the bark around the tree, it sounds hollow in several spots. interesting to hear other people have had trouble with them too.

shawnee

Yeah it is quite strange, I lost a beautiful camelia and now I have one or two other shrubs including a holly bush that look sick. Many of them looked fine until a six weeks ago and started to die then, this was after the cold weather was well gone. Trying to repot one or two and hope they might come back to life. Had a new griselinia hedge that I planted last year and it seems fine and the established ones around are dying....

Wibbs

Yea some of my tree ferns survived, or I thought so, but nope a month ago long after the deep cold they turned brown over a few days. These were tree ferns that survived previous years no bother and every year including this I'd pack the crowns with leaf mould. I also left old brown fronds on that fell like a skirt around the trunk offering further protection. Slight micro climate going on(damp and less prone to frost) to the degree I've had self seeding(sporing) dicksonias. They died too. All told I lost including the self seeders 9 dicksonias and a couple of cytherias(sp) and a fair few other non native ferns. I lost some old roses, while others thrived. My magnolia was same as usual so fingers crossed. Though it's near 50 years old so well used to the odd bad winter.

What's weird though is my palms. I've never seen them be so vigorous so early. The cold really seemed to make them grow. They were growing during the snow.

Small pic, but you can see the flowers already nearly fully out. Other years it was mid June before they'd show. It put over a foot on in growth during the period between mid December to mid January.

Another plant that seemed to really go mad this year were the primulas, especially the common or garden cowslip. Mad load of them this year.

slowburner

There's a thesis in this for someone.
It must be that the intense weather killed off certain pests/viruses/diseases allowing some plants to thrive and others just weren't up to the conditions. Potted plants might be a different story, I noticed that plants in terra cotta fared less well than those in plastic.
The incredible quantity of bloom last year has been surpassed by this year's. Here's hoping we don't get any more hard frost.

connewitz

The late dying of plants is related to the fine, warm weather.
The frost has destroyed the plant cells (they do expand when freezing) and after the big thaw they just collapse and the plants are dying!
I am from Germany and we have a lot of the same plants there, what is growing here. The difference is, that the plants in the nurseries are growing under completely different conditions. They get the heat and severe winters in Germany and here they grew under the mild weather. Now is all changing (with global warming and so) and the plants can`t adapt this quick. I lost a lot of plants myself, but I would never consider to buy the same plants again. Only the true survivors are worth the money and time! So I did fill a lot of gaps with lilac and forsythia.:pac:

Foleyart

I lost two out of three mountain ash which I thought should be well hardy to survive our weather. The surviving one was a gift which was left in a growbag for about a year getting fffd about before we bought the other two from a nursery. We planted out all three at the same time. The survivor seemed to thrive better than the other two though it remained a bit stunted, the other two have just died presumably from the frost. Extremely exposed site on the coast, all trees show wind burn on the leaves. Three silver birch planted the same time survived tho leaves only coming on the lower limbs.

slowburner

Foleyart wrote: »

I lost two out of three mountain ash which I thought should be well hardy to survive our weather. The surviving one was a gift which was left in a growbag for about a year getting fffd about before we bought the other two from a nursery. We planted out all three at the same time. The survivor seemed to thrive better than the other two though it remained a bit stunted, the other two have just died presumably from the frost. Extremely exposed site on the coast, all trees show wind burn on the leaves. Three silver birch planted the same time survived tho leaves only coming on the lower limbs.

Maybe it was the salty air! All the Mountain Ash around here (s. Wicklow) are fine.

Online01

Hi

I got a Acacia for Christmas. Didnt want to put it during the big freeze etc so I kept it (and my Jap Acer) inside by the front door - my thinking was that itwoudl get plenty of light, but its pretty cold there so wouldnt overheat etc..

So , happy to say the baby Acer survived and was moved outside and seems to be very content.

Would ye recommend i do this again next year if we have a bad spell again?

However , I noticed the Acacia wasn;t doing so well by the front door, so moved it to the sitting room for a few weeks...prob a mistake i m guessing now cos it just got worse.

I have ot outside now.Its about a metre high and the trunk/bark whatever is fairly solid. But all the leaves are dead and show no signs of life

What should I do??

This was a really lovely Christmas pressent...so will try anything..

thanks for your help or any suggestions

R