Thats a bad hit Dave. We had some bad burn going on here too,its a bad feeling!

Rob

Ouch.

I have a skylands which does not look great but seems to have handled my winter better than your Tom Thumb.

How was your snow cover? Mine may have helped the skylands.

I'm very sorry for your loss.

In Europe we had quite the opposite of you Americans. Here in northern Belgium we had only three frost nights as opposed to an average of 40+ if I recall correctly.
The lowest recorded temperature this winter in my garden was -3.4 degrees celsius (25.9 degrees fahrenheit) which is laughable too.

Hopefully winter next year will be more 'evenly' distributed. :p

This brutal winter certainly has been widespread. Hopefully none those are your cherished specimens. None the less once you get more than a couple plants cashing out its quite disheartening.

I've actually been taking a close look at which species are experiencing damage and what the general conditions have been for winter in various areas. Actually scoping out areas I might relocate to.

Surprised how cold you got and how many sub zero temps you experienced. I was looking at records right outside of Shawnee and there was a low of -8 and three other sub zero days in Jan and Feb. Are you in a colder microclimate?

i feel for ya ...

in my world.. these types could be left for an entire year.. to see what happens... [other that the patently obviously dead ones ...]

shall i presume that yours will be shovel pruned.. if you didnt do it after snapping the pix???

the upside.. budget permitting... an opportunity to add some new things ...

how many things you have on order.. that really did NOT have a space ...

my tom thumb.. has been under two feet of snow since nov.. i have high hopes for no problems ...

werent the cedrus and crytomeria.. both .. technically.. zone pushing for you ... i only tried both once or twice.. in my z5 ... and they did not live long ... even with semi-mild winters ...

and what the heck is a cotoneaster doing in there... did you lose focus on a whim... lol ...

ken

Some tough losses for sure, was a brutal winter. Makes this spring especially welcome. Up north here we're fairly use to such extreme cold and my collection actually took it fairly well. We were fortunate to get a solid snow cover in early December which stuck around till last week and did a good job of protecting plants. Had some burning on my omorikas that I'm sure they'll grow out of, but that was about it. Lots of replanting for a lot of people I'm sure

Sorry to see that Dave.

My 'Tom Thumb' was also buried like Ken's all winter and is just now exposed and its ok. My 'Prof Langner' and 'Bergman's Gem' have damage on their south sides, but not like yours. That was a first for orientalis here. We also saw -15F or colder but have had ample snow with over 90 days of continuous snow cover.

Rabbits were brutal on my unprotected Tsuga cans and Doug Firs.

tj

Deer did more damage than the cold, here, but I did lose the cedrus I was trying, including hardier varieties such as 'Karl Fuchs'. 'Deep Cove' made it, but probably only because I made a point of burying it in snow.

Sorry Dave, that's a hard hit. Besides my newly planted fall conifers, the only older conifers I lost were a few Picea glauca. Since everything else weathered the storm, it doesn't look like Picea glauca may be as cold hardy as the others.

Rick, I can see any of the P. glauca var. albertina types being tender, but things like 'Pendula' or 'Cecilia' have no signs of burn here.

tj

Ken,

"and what the heck is a cotoneaster doing in there... did you lose focus on a whim.".. lol I just threw that into the mix to throw you a curve.

Actually I have a mixture of companion plants to complement my conifers. I like stuff such as the Cotoneaster especially a hard to find cultivar like this one grown on a standard. They fit nicely into tight locations for that special touch I am looking for.

The Crypto and Cedrus were on the edge but have survived 10 plus years with one night of those -0 temps. Due to the numerous cold snaps once or twice a week for two months was to much for them I assume.

The 'Tom Thumb' I don't know. It was mostly exposed all winter. I have another small one plus 'Skylands' and they made it with no issues. That's one I will shove prune and take a look at the roots. The others are crispy brown and will go.

I hated to loose the Cedrus libani 'Green Prince". A spreader that shot up a 3' vertical leader. Unusual and an attention getter. The photo just doesn't show how cool it was.

I got the 'Professor Langner' from Bob Fincham. I don't know if I can get a replacement from him or not.

whaas Temps vary locally in my area because of the hilly terrain. The big temp clock on my deck is usually spot on and that's where I am coming from.

Later

That was a spectacular 'Green Prince' I remember the original pic. To get to that size must have taken a good few years and judged as a small tree. I winced when your roll call showed it as it is now, very sad loss.

Sorry for the losses. It has been extreme weather for us in the Midwest. My whole Heather Hill looks like toast this year, after 8 years or so of doing great. Have no clue if most are alive under all the branches that are leafless. The rest I have to wait to see the damage. Like you we had those temps with some -25 with wind chill. We were under snow cover for those temps and I am hoping that roots are ok. Haven't checked the conifers out back yet. Makes me think that I should have not gotten zone 5 stuff, but maybe zone 4. And I think getting a couple zone 6 things a couple years ago was maybe a mistake, even though that's my zone. LOL
Cher

Yeah, I'm in the same boat. If I go with anything zone 5 it has to be more dwarf. Also going to be more careful about plants that list zone 4 and zone 5. That tells me the plant is borderline zone 4. I have several zone 4 plants (but also listed to zone 5) that have perished.

Dave, I had the same issue. weather.com was always off by 5 degrees or so. Later learned the data was coming from a town 5 miles away! Now I select a specific station from weather underground, found one that was on point with my thermometer.

oh no! Maybe some of them can recover? Maybe the buds lived? That 'Tom Thumb' was beautiful!

Well, I lost some stuff too just being to the west of you in Kansas Dave but most of that was planted this fall. I will never do that again here. Just not enough moisture to make it for them even if I tried to water occasionally. I have better luck in early spring. All my Cedrus are doing fine though. My Snow Sprite did get some freezer burn but still a lot of good left. It did not touch my Feeling Blue or Green Knight or Pygmaea. Most of the ones I lost were Picea abies miniature species with small needles. I also lost my second Tom Thumb so I may just pass on another one and also 2 Picea glauca Pixie Dust. I don't know what happened to them all for sure but it was not the cold probably more drought?? Who knows. I lost about 10 or so different plants in all. It sucks because now I have to fund Sam's salary some more.

This post was edited by ingeborgdot on Sun, Mar 23, 14 at 21:24

Did any cedrus survive? Not surprised by the death of dwarf Cyprus cedar, it is the least hardy true cedar. Would you describe this winter as cold in the historic sense? In other words, has there been a colder winter in the last 10, 20, 50, or 100 years (yes I know you're not 100 yrs old but there is generally reliable weather data back that far). I don't mind planting things that will not persist indefinitely, if we all did that we would pretty much plant just natives and that would be boring as hell. I buy a few tropical plants every year, they last a few years, they are easy to protect at first and showy and interesting, eventually they are too big to mess with and I let them die. When you think about it, even nice plants that last a few years are hardly an expensive vice. It costs 50 bucks to take my wife to a 2 hr movie. What's 150 bucks matter for something you can enjoy for several years?

Generally speaking it was the coldest winter since 1978/1979 for many areas in the midwest and east coast.

So call it 35 years.

I believe MN, IL, WI, IA and MO saw the worst of it.

Only Cedrus deodara 'Eisregen' survived with no damage. Is as it should be . Collected for hardiness from and arid, high altitude location in Pakistan.

All Cedrus atlantica survived with no issues. All other cedrus some damage but salvageable.

All Cryptomeria dead.

Picea orientalis some damage down low and that's why 'Tom Thumb Gold' totaled out.

One to two feet off the ground seemed to be the coldest and where all the damage occurred.

Like winterfell said: " What's 150 bucks matter for something you can enjoy for several years"? Correctly stated. Now I can move on and rebuild..

Whaas, Eastern KS should be in you mix " the worst of it".

Dave

This post was edited by Davesconifers on Tue, Mar 25, 14 at 10:56

This is an interesting graphic that Ark posted in another post.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:329479}}

And a link for a closer look of the Midwest that has been hammered.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:673718}}

The sustained nature of the cold for many of you around the Great Lakes is what is truly impressive. Here locally, it has been a cold winter, but there have been many short respites from the cold as well, which has raised the winter averages much higher than would be expected. But those short breaks seem to have been critical, as at this point I'm not seeing much in the way of plant death, though it is VERY early in any foliage development. I have much compassion for all of you losing your valued friends. Much the same has happened here over the last 4-5 years due to heat and drought from hell. When native fully grown trees in undisturbed soil give up and die in a poka-dot pattern in the surrounding hills, then you know it's bad. Yet that is what happened in both 2011 and 2012, and continues due to the stress induced from those two summers and is expected to continue for about three more years. The weather has become basically nothing but extremes, and our trees are suffering for it.

Arktrees

Recently I was at Canada Bloom, and since I'm also a member of Rhododendron Society, was helping and answering questions. Everyone who stopped by our booth was concerned about rhododendrons and everything else in the garden. The winter was hard and long and freezing rain in December damaged trees all over Toronto. The devastation is vast and until it warms up we won't know what has survived. My cedar trees have some broken branches and are bent out of shape. Even an enormous cedar tree in back of my garden has broken branches and it is first time in many years this has happened.

About as cold a late March day here as I can remember. 24F & snow flurries at 10:30 AM. I'll check the Hagerstown observer tomorrow to see if a daily record is set.

8 degrees off the all time record. 6F this morning...give me a break.

We had 2F yesterday morning, and there's still about a foot of snow on the ground. It is not unusual to experience winters that are unusually cold, snowy, or long, but it is very unusual to get all three at the same time like we've had this year. Folks are getting edgy and I'm afraid March madness refers to more than just basketball around here.

The damage to small conifers I planted over the past three years is obvious and extensive. It's very discouraging, but about all one can do is grin and bear it.

In Maryland we've had a cold long winter also. what really stands out is the number of snow days. Normally we get as much rain as snow in the winter but this year it seems all our precip was snow. The kids are sick of missing school. Something I thought was impossible.

I haven't seen much damage from the cold. I got some deer antler damage in the fall.

We are 2 days away from breaking the ALL time record for snow days. Almost postive we had 50 days of measureble snow and the record is 52. We where close to also setting the record for consecutive days of measurable snow on the ground.

Funny thing is that we aren't much above average. Its been nothing but nusicance snow falls of 1 to 2 inches. I'd rather have fewer and get 6" of snow.

I actually love snow and say bring it. Its the sub zero weather that is so painful.

Average ~15 sub zero days a year and had 40+ this year. Its painful just saying that.

I was close to being right. From the Hagerstown observer, where his station is near the city center:

March 27th: Near record very cold low of 16 F this morning. The record is 15 in 1915.

The low here was 11F.

It was also quite chilly much farther south down in the higher peaks of the GSMNP. Mt. Leconte weather station(elev 6400') recorded lows of 0 F on the 26th and -1 F on 27th.

Johnny

I think that is what took a toll on some of my conifers. Some days but mostly nights, of sub - 0 temps. for several months. Everything always endured the cold snaps every winter but they were short lived.

I am rebuilding. Just ordered a beautiful Picea pungens 'Ruby Teardrops' from Conifer Kingdom yesterday. I used
the $200.00 cash prize I won in their photo contest. Should get it next week. I'll post a photo.

Two more I noticed I lost.

Taxodium distichum 'Secrest W. B.
{{gwi:673729}}

Picea orientalis 'Gracilis'

{{gwi:673730}}

Dave

Dave, how do you know that seacrest is dead? None of my taxodiums have broken bud yet.

Be careful with bald cypress they appear dead by not showing green cambium in the shoots but the damn things are actually alive. If the root stock is alive it one of the few (along with smokebush) that I would cut back to see what it does. Most others I don't even bother.