I'm wondering the same thing. Many of my ornamental trees and shrubs are kind of parallel to the ground now : ( I hope the storm that's expected to add up to another 2' today doesn't do them in completely. This really has been an unbelieveable amount of snow. Many years we get less then a foot total for the entire season.

If they don't break from the weight of snow and ice the evergreens should right themselves over time. You can shake them off if you can get to them. This is a very wet heavy snow, but those branches are strong. There will be some damage, but hopefully not as much as we fear.

A 40' branch from my neighbors white pine came down across the deck of our pool. It took down part of the pool fence but it's too hard to get to it to see if there's any other damage.

Sometimes you can damage them if you try to remove the snow. I suggest letting the snow melt naturally. Then prop them up, stake them, and they should be fine, as long as they didn't break. Even if some were uprooted, you can still restore the root ball, feed, water, mulch...and they will be OK. I know it can be hard to look at now, but by August it will be a distant memory. Back in 2003, we had 17 inches of heavy wet cement, and when I woke up, my young southern magnolia was "gone"---almost flattened. But it popped back very well and 7 years later is a brute of a tree.

Yeah, I lost several big branches on my star magnolia. :-( At least my cedars are holding up ok so far, buy my yews are all over the place. 5 feet in one week is a bit much, even for this snow lover.

Jen

Erik, this breakage may not be as bad as you fear. My mother has a hedge row of Leyland cypresses at her house in Montgomery County, and they were damaged in the same way during the snowstorm of 2003. That was also a 24" plus type of heavy snow, similar to what's happening this week. The trees came right back from the damage. Not sure how they look as of today, but a couple of weeks ago they looked good. The trees quickly developed new leaders and grew like crazy. Hope this happens for you as well.