January 18th, 2007
Ice Flowers

photo: frozen viola
2007-01-18. Austin, TX. Inspired by Pam/Digging, I looked for beauty in the destruction. We were lucky not to have much destruction, though.

‘Blush Noisette’ was just about to open three buds. She was completely flattened by the ice but has sprung back to shape now that it’s melting.

photo: frozen rosebud

Ditto for the loquat and the magnolia. I don’t think any limbs are broken, just bent. The duranta, however, looks terrible. I should have tried to bring it in. I’m counting on it coming back from its roots but that means I lost a year of growth on it.

All my little cuttings of lavender and Jerusalem sage which I had under cover look fine. So does the vegetable garden, except for the basil, of course. It’s really too early to tell. I wonder how the tomato is doing. The cover over it is frozen solid so I haven’t had a peek yet.

by M Sinclair Stevens

4 Responses to post “Ice Flowers”

  1. From Pam/Digging (Austin):

    My yaupon is trying to stand back up again. Ditto for the Barbados cherry. However, it suffered loss of a large branch, as did one of my fence screeners, the Southern wax myrtles, which look terrible. Basically, any evergreen shrub or tree had a hard time of it.

  2. From Annie in Austin:

    Hi, M and Pam. It’s 4 PM Thursday, and your photos are starting to look pretty to me, so maybe there’s hope. I see no spring back at all so far on Loquat, Little Gem Magnolia or Southern Wax myrtle, and the boxwoods look worse than they did on Tuesday. But the roses don’t look too bad and the camellia stands a little taller than it did this morning. The big Barbados cherry looked dead before the storm, and it’s too early to tell on the small one.

    The melting process is extremely slow … that may actually be a good thing since sun and warmth might produce more ‘snapping’ action among the branches.

    Annie at the Transplantable Rose

  3. From r sorrell (Austin):

    I still haven’t taken the covers off of my plants. They were still frozen solid yesterday. I’m pretty sure my bouganvillia are toast (or mush – whatever). My dwarf pomegranate, which I didn’t cover, is kind of brown.

  4. From Ki (New Jersey):

    You captured the beauty in all the destruction. For us northerners this is pretty much a common occurrence every winter especially in the northeastern states. The Nor’easters off the Atlantic can bring heavy wet snow or ice but we don’t plant as many tender plants as you do so our loss is usually not that great. Hope all your plants survive. Thanks for the photos.

    Thanks for stopping by. Throughout the three days of the ice storm, temperatures remained steady around 30F degrees. So far, I haven’t seen much damage from the cold. Instead the damage has been from the weight of the ice on our shrubbery and trees. We got so much precipitation (6 inches of rain the day before the storm) that I predict the garden will look better by Valentine’s Day than it did last year at this time when we were already suffering from drought. — mss