Oh Alex I am so sorry. I hope some of your things can be saved and replanted immediately. It's so sad to lose so much. The tree is unreal with the big split. Obviously it can't be saved at all. The huge neighbor's conifers are shocking to see lying there. Hoping for the best with most of yours.
Cher

Look on the bright side - nice seed-collecting opportunity with those spruces.

The cedar might be saveable, with some good guy ropes. And dig down to break up the soil below it to encourage deeper rooting.

Resin

I feel for you Alex, the only saving grace is that you planted them in 2008, they weren't planted by your grandfather in 1958 or earlier like those Norway spruce and can't be replaced. If my tree is going to die before me, let it happen in the first 10 years, after that it's heartbreaking. Don't give up on all of them just yet, the blue atlas and the Serbian spruce are worth planting upright again if you can manage it, you have nothing to lose and hopefully they'll make it. Best of luck.

Too bad. Yep: salvage what you can Alex.

Take care,

Dax

My heart goes out to you, Alex.

tj

Good luck with the recovery program ; gardening is or was supposed to be a relaxing hobby...
Best wishes T.

Good luck with rebuilding all again...

My heart goes out to you. That's a lot of damage!
At least your Phlomis looks OK. ;-)
Mike

ma nature is a witch.. and i mis-spelled that ...

forget about my heart going out to you.. i am pissed for you ...

replant whatever you can.. whats to lose ...

i wonder on some of those smaller ones.. if they would have done better w/o the man-made staking .. i often wonder.. as i am tying a flexible tree to an unmovable object.. whether i am doing better or worse ...

its amazing on those larger trees.. how little major root mass there is ... just goes to show.. i think.. how much of the root mass is feeder roots rather than structural ... [but why is there always a big root where you want to dig a hole ...] ... and i wonder.. how those trees date to the last major blow ... wasnt that in the late 30's or something ... which would be just about when those were babes.. speculating wildly ...

well.. i guess its good you got your grafting system going.. let me know when you are ready for scion.. looks like you will have a few more planting holes ...

take care..

ken

BTW: i notice the sodden earth under the atlas.. is your soil heavy clay ... how long will that water stand there????

during the 50's Ken. There's a trending of warming and cooling that occurs between the Pacific and Atlantic oceans where one goes from cold to warm and vice-versa. I'm not at all a weather follower, however.

Dax

After the 1994 ice-storm in SW VA, there was a thin, 40' cherry birch below my house in the understory that was "mostly" uprooted & lying at a 45 deg angle against another tree. I got some rope & a come-a-long (a ratchet that develops a big pulling force). Using another tree to pull against, I somehow pulled it upright & secured it with rope to adjacent trees. Yrs later I removed the ropes, and the tree was OK!

Just saying that it's possible to save some trees this way, but obviously not easy.

I express my sincere condolences, Alex. My heart hurts looking at these pictures. I hope you and your loved ones are not affected. Media are full of alarming news about your misfortune. We all living through with you. Very sorry to those who perished...

I immediately thought of your all beautiful gardens too. We also had a storm (I live by the seaside), but not so strong. It's terrible.

I wish more rescued trees, Ireena

Much sympathy.
I lived through many a storm during my South Florida years and the destruction of the garden was always difficult to look at. After one storm completely wiped out 20 years of work I gave up and moved away.

Husband works on golf courses (both here and there) and they replanted many a storm toppled tree with very good results. Some fairly large trees were successfully re-established on the Florida course almost every year- if they are of a size you can get them upright they are of a size that can be saved. Even if you can only get them halfway propped up for now that betters their chances.
They want to live- I wish I was there to help you try and save them.

Again much sympathy.

Of course for the ones whose trunks were split, there is no hope.
However, after the Great Storm of 1987, the gardeners at Kew found that gigantic trees - some over 100 years old - that had been blown over, re-righted, and replanted, actually were invigorated by the procedure. For the ones whose trunks are not damaged, I'd see what happens if you merely right them and stake them. This also assumes none of them had circling roots either.

In any case, I'm sorry for what you are going through. I can imagine how upsetting it must be. Are you in north Jersey or south Jersey?

sorry, not sure why I thought you were in New Jersey, perhaps just because the damage was the worst there - I know some adjacent states were just as bad. If you are zone 6 I guess you are north Jersey or an interior part of PA, like Reading where there was a 79 mph wind gust.

The big ones look so folorn with their shrouds of turf. Like the skin on a downed elephant.

Sorry also for your losses.

That blows...pun intended to cheer you up!

Hopefully your favs can bounce back from the transplant. You might be surprised that they do since they where likely dormant.

***
Posted by davidrt28 7 (My Page) on
Fri, Nov 2, 12 at 13:21

Of course for the ones whose trunks were split, there is no hope.
***

Almost always.

My 25' Osage orange had a dead Siberian elm blown over on it -- it was flattened & mostly uprooted. In addition, it twisted the trunk near the base & split it down the middle a foot or so. I cut all the major limbs way back while on the ground, righted & secured it. That was 2 yrs ago & it's recovering -- 3 foot sprouts this yr.

Yes, I think Osage oranges are known for surviving anything besides a direct nuclear attack!

Dang Alex, Sorry to see all that damage....Always a work in progress. If its not the heat, its a bad storm.
One year one of my brothers had a real large crep myrtle split and i threw about a dozen fence screws in it and today its doing great. Good luck!

Yes sorry to see such damage.Hope you can rescue some of your rare conifers.

Thank you one and all for your kind words of encouragement. Other than the Hawthorn which I have no hope for, my downed trees are now right side up and staked as needed. Time will tell the true damage that's been done.

David, no need to apologize, indeed I am in NJ, central NJ about half way between Princeton and the shore. Until the recent zonal revision, most of NJ was rated as Z6, and that's still what I consider myself. I can't remember the last time we got down below -5 *F though for that matter.

Ken, these pics were taken as the storm was receding and the ground was well beyond saturated. That said, my soil is fairly clayey and like many recently developed properties, it varies in its nature from spot to spot. New plantings will be made in raised beds with imported "topsoil", for that reason.

Thanks again everyone.

Alex

good thing you staked them- seems like another nor'easter is coming in wednesday night. I know I staked off some stuff this weekend that partially uprooted from sandy last week. don't think this one will as bad- but still alot of wind and rain sowing. good luck.

Gah that's rough. We get storms here occasionally with 40-70 mph winds but nothing like the beating you guys took. I think a few of your trees are salvagable at least and boy would it feel good to save them and look back on this with some kind of smile.

Alex, I agree with others have said try replanting your trees, (don't overdo it though - get some help) and you will be surprised about how tough they are. We had a 15-20 foot Austrian pine blow down a few years ago and called a landscaping company the next day. The guy was also a tree lover like us and said, well lets try to save it. We dug up around the roots, added some soil and just packed it back in, and viola - the tree has made a great recovery.

keep us posted and sorry for the destruction.