Interesting - it doesn't look like the snow really stuck to the trees there. Here, the trees are all bent over with snow. I'm a bit worried about going out to shovel. My driveway is like a long tunnel, because the trees are so bent over, almost touching the ground. I'm worried I'll get hit in the head if I go out there!

Lost lots of very large limbs (thankfully no damage to house or cars or power lines...yet) but may have lost a large old oak right in front of the house. The main trunk is snapped off at the very top, so I'm not sure what that means for the health of the tree.

Still trying to get used to the sight of trees covered in snow... with red, yellow, and orange leaves still on them! And the snow in the streets is tinged yellowish, lol, from the crushed leaves mixed in. Very odd...

Hope everyone made out okay with this Halloween trick!

Dee

Startling views, (isn't this still October?)! The long view down the cornfield is lovely, albeit unsettling (isn't this still October?).

No snow here in Plymouth, MA on the coastal bank - just rain and wind and wind and wind. Luckily Irene caused early defoliation so the trees weren't heavily damaged. Grasses are bent, and I'll have to prop up the wisteria again but not much else. The deck got powerwashed (good), although the glass sliding door leaked from the top again (needs re-caulking). That only happens when the rain blows horizontally off the bay.

I'm hoping for a nice Indian summer before Thanksgiving.

Claire

Dee -

I'm sorry about the large oak - it doesn't sound good. We did have more snow on the leaves, but by the time I was outside with the camera shortly after 8:00, it was above freezing and much of the snow had fallen off already.

Claire - I do love having the cornfield right next to the house. The view changes seasonally depending on how high the corn is, and for much of the year we have quite a long view since the field is a long, relatively narrow 26 acres. Makes great XC skiing, horseback riding for the neighbors, and walking when the corn is gone (too often have blackbears and not enough visibility when the corn is high, so I don't go near it after midsummer unless I'm in a vehicle.) The weather guy on local tv said that this is the largest October snowfall since they started keeping records 140 years ago.

I moved some coneflowers a few weeks ago and cut them back. One little guy re-bloomed.

Only about an inch of slush here.

Just got in from shoveling - finally got brave, lol. The snow is incredibly heavy, and now I see why the trees are bending near the ground! It's after noon and there's still a ton of snow on the trees - doesn't seem to want to fall off.

We have about ten very large limbs down - big enough to require a chain saw before we even think of moving them! I still can't believe that nothing hit the house or power lines. We were very lucky. And, I noticed another tree where the main trunk was snapped at the top.

Knocked a lot of snow off the shrubs and there doesn't seem to be any serious damage to any of them, thank goodness. Well, except for a viburnum. Three of the large limbs actually fell right into three beds - figures - but most of the beds are perennials so I'm sure there's no lasting damage. Just the one bed where the limb fell straight on the viburnum, and maybe on a neighboring fothergilla. Can't move the darn limb to see the damage yet, but if that's all I lost, then I'll deal with it happily.

Actually, a funny - and lucky! - story here. My husband knows (and makes fun of) my wimpinesss when it comes to driving in snow. Yesterday he called me at work and offered to pick me up. I had planned on braving it, but figured if he offered, why not? Well, it's a good thing he did, because when we got home there was a huge tree limb lying right in his parking spot! That would have been on top of his car if he didn't come get me. I'll have to save that for future ammunition when he teases me about my cowardice, lol.

Overall, I guess I can't complain. Have been reading accounts of 19 inches accumulation in NJ, and 26 and 27 inches in MA! Wow. I'll be happy with the 5 or 6 inches of snow and the fallen limbs that didn't hit anything, and won't complain a peep! Even if we do have more damage now than from Irene!

It was very strange shoveling snow in the shade, though, lol. Still can't get used to snow and fall foliage!

Dee

Great photos, thanks for sharing those. That cornfield is really beautiful, nhbabs, and I love bungalow's coneflower shot.

Nothing here - a little wind, but few limbs down around town, and no frost or snow ... yet. Now I'm wondering if I need to drag those clay pots back out of the garage; some of the plants were still looking pretty good and it seems a waste to kill them off so quickly. On the bright side, my freezer is now full of rosemary stems - I'd never have gotten them in before frost if I hadn't expected this storm.

Bungalow - That's one cold looking flower. My coneflowers which also had blooms haven't emerged from the snow, but the tall perennials like the Baptisia and Amsonia are totally flattened. No permanent damage, I'm sure, but this was the first autumn that the warm temperatures lasted long enough for my Amsonia to turn gold. Where are you loosely (coastal MA for example) and how much snow did you get?

nhbabs, I am in southern coastal Maine. We were lucky, we just got a little slush and it melted very quickly.

Barb, that long shot of the cornfield is absolutely gorgeous. It is so serene. I love the way it's almost black and white with just some shots of color.

I thought the first light snowfall was "pretty" and made for some nice photos.

But a couple days later Mother Nature just turned downright nasty. We wound up with 19" of snow and it just trashed the garden. I now have a weeping physocarpos (which I actually like!) but the beautyberry is crushed and I can't even begin to count how many shrubs are just flattened. Over time they should all hopefully revive themselves. My DH was out 3X the night of the storm banging off shrubs and trees until the rake wound up in one tree, the shovel in another, the broom in yet another, etc. Once all the tools were up trees he had to give up! He did a lot of banging of lower tree branches but then resorted to javelin throwing to get the upper branches, hence the tools stuck up the trees. At 3:30am I heard the magnolia near out bedroom window crash down and said "well, the broom's out of the tree" Oh well. It's actually the magnolia up by the picket fence in the above picture. The whole right side ripped off the tree. Such a huge gash all the way down. Not sure about survival.
Just got power back yesterday so we were happy about that!

If you can believe it, under all this snow is a 12' rose of sharon, a 10' physocarpos (now the weeping one) a large pee gee hydrangea, a tall weigela and a rose bush and a huge beautyberry. The split-rail fence is about 3' and the shrubs normally tower over it.

Oh, that's horrible, thyme2dig! You put so much work into your garden and it's always lovely. I hope your magnolia survives and the other damage isn't too great. I can imagine you'll be holding your breath until the snow melts or is removed and you can see what shape those poor shrubs are really in.

Claire

I am so sorry about the damage, t2d! I think most other things will recover eventually, but it sounds like the magnolia may struggle. I guess all you can do is wait and see how it heals. I know that when I went down to the long mixed border at the shop, my Physocarpus/ninebark was flattened like yours. It's in the middle of the bed, and I couldn't see where other things were that I might step on, so I didn't try to clear it, but it went from about 7 feet down to about 1 foot. When I last checked on Monday, it was still buried, but I will check it again tomorrow.

Glad you have power back! It gets old quickly to not have water, heat, and refrigeration. How did your birch trees weather the weight of the snow? One of our wild birches along the road is what took our power out for the short time we lost it.

The first photo is lovely. The color variation in those beds is great, and is amazing when I think how nice they look in other seasons as well.

The snow made for some beautiful photos.

I finally got in touch with a friend who lives in West Hartford CT. He is also an avid gardener. He described the situation as "total devastation". He said every large tree in his neighborhood has been severely damaged. Every tree and shrub in his yard has been damaged to variable degrees. Half of the houses on his street have had the powerlines ripped totally off the house.

Barb, the birch trees fared very well. They stayed straight the entire time. I think the Magnolia might be toast, but we'll give it some time. So far things are popping back up to a certain extent. The Beautyberry is entirely squished but that will definitely come back with a good, severe pruning next spring.

Rockman, I do think we fared much better up here than further south because the temps were a bit cooler so the snow was not nearly as heavy and wet as expected. I heard CT had over 800k w/o power after the storm. I would bet there are still many in the dark.

We didn't get our power back on until late Tuesday and just got our internet connection back yesterday. Sorry to hear about everyone's damage. That was a lot of heavy snow t2d. 19 inches? We barely got 3 inches in our area but even that small amount did damage. There was barely a street you could drive down that didn't have branches on the ground.

Our neighbor had a 60yr old maple that had 1/3 of the trunk split and most of it is in our yard. Two other neighbors have multiple limbs down in their own yard and ours. No one has been able to get to them yet, but today we will be getting out there to take care of it.

The maple with the split trunk....

Another neighbor's tree that backs up to us. This used to be a full canopy....

Have to be grateful that we didn't have any damage to the house and no one in the neighborhood did. Three days without power though, certainly makes you consider how you can be better insulated from disruption in similar circumstances. Especially when others were without power even longer.

Love that photo of that cornfield, nhbabs.

I posted pictures of the tree damage here in north central CT on another thread so unless everyone is eager to see them, I won't repeat here. I'm glad other parts of the region weren't as badly clobbered as CT. I'm still punchy so when the power flickered this afternoon I was down at the woodstove shoveling out ashes and building a fire before the cat could lick her ear. After 10 days with no power, I wasn't about to be caught unprepared with a cold house. Just to err on the side of caution, I still haven't emptied the gallon jugs of water I filled before Albert arrived.

The tops of my 150+ y/o oaks are snapped off but I'm hopeful they may send out new growth next year (?) and I won't need to have them taken down. The trunks of two of the mature dogwoods my mother planted along the southern property line were snapped in half 10 ft. up with the tree tops laying on the ground so I had those cut down. The other two are damaged but still have a few branches.

One of the 5 oaks that grow in front of my house just a few feet in from the road:
{{gwi:1093409}}

I'm aware their proximity to the street makes them town property but that also means it's the town's responsibility to maintain them...or am I just kidding myself?

There's definitely one, and I suspect another, hole in my garage roof where branches were driven through it by the force of the wind + gravity. Considering the size of the tree the branch fell from, I'm lucky the tree itself didn't fall on the house/garage. I'm one of those people who keep both the car & truck inside (gas tanks full), facing out, whenever we have bad weather. May have to rethink that after this storm.

One thing I won't have to worry about anytime soon is firewood to keep the woodstove hot.