This is my full laden Shambala branch of loquats.
2” of snow were enough to bring down the branch and destroy half the tree
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Ouch.
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Wow that seems really unlucky, we got 8 inches and I didn’t have any damage on any trees. The loquat was the one I was worried about, perhaps the wind that came with the snow helped keep it from weighing down the branches too much. It would hurt to lose a graft that’s for sure
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More damage. This time to one of my prized seedling Feijoas. I’m sure there is more damage but this is all I found on a quick look around.
The snow here is different from other parts of the country. It is unusually heavy. Skiers in the mountains called it Cascade Cement.
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I tried to stem (no pun intended) the damage with a stake to support the branch and wrapped the branch with the stretchy rubber material (tourniquet) used in clinics to draw blood. Hopefully it stops the peeling bark and helps healing. There’s still a gap but not much I can do since the branch twisted as it broke.
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Man, really sorry. That’s tough.
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Had that with a large apricot one year on June 06. I was out of town and found it when I got home a couple of days later. Trees all over town busted up.
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Were you covering them or was it just the wet snow on the leaves that did the damage?
Cascade Concrete is the name that I grew up with. Actually the best snow is when the lowlands get snow, the snow in the mountains is champagne powdery, problem is that it’s difficult to make it up to the slopes.
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The loquat was covered but feijoa branches broke with just the weight of the snow. Feijoa is maybe the weakest wood in the world.
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We get a lot of the slushy snow here in the Vancouver, BC, area. It’s good to know that Feijoa trees are susceptible to this kind of breakage. I think that it could be prevented by growing them with multiple trunks and limiting the length of side branches by pruning the long ones back every year. The broken branches seem to have fairly narrow crotches; so, it might be useful to remove branches with narrow crotches.
I’m growing my Feijoas as bushes with multiple main trunks limited to a height of 6 ft. I’ll try to apply these principles when I prune them.
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I see several very poor crotch angles which should have been pruned out long ago. My experience is with pecan which is a very different species, but managing pecan branch angles is for very similar reasons.
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Some heavy snow and ice sure can do that fast. I’m sorry this happened. Winter always seems difficult to me nowadays. As a child i remember loving winter. As adults we have a different perspective because we know consequences of a broken rare loquat. I think we might need to remember being children again in hard times like this. We wont be racing sleds down the hill nowadays proably but when i see hard times like that i think back on a simple perspective a child had
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I can do that! I can remember moving the beds into the room with the stove and closing off the rest of the house. I can remember trying to read by lamplight. I can remember six-inch ice on the horse tank.
I don’t exactly remember this from Pine Village, IN, Feb 1909:
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I had damage like this on my apple tree. I wrapped it and then put clamps on the branches to force them together. Figured I had nothing to lose - it healed, but took about 2 years before I removed the clamps.
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This is great to know! I have supports under the branches and have wrapped them as you see. Closer to spring, I will use wood screws to secure the branch better. Have nothing to lose as you say. I will also generously take cuttings of the branch to reduce the stress of healing.
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Thats tough, I would screw it back together, using ceramic coated wood screws, drill pilot holes first so it doesnt crack the branches worse. Once you have it back the best you can wrap it well and it should heal in a few years. provided you dont have another event.
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In my childhood, i grew up in a house, never over 50 degrees in the winter or under 80 degrees in the summer. Yearly pneumonia never got me down i was out there having a wonderful time. Sledding in the winter and swimming in the summer. As a child my perspective was simple , as adults our expectations are higher.
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I would second @TheDerek in recommending small wood screws. On some of the beanches, you have a good strip of intact bark and that is all you need to keep the branch alive once it is firmly reattached. I have successfully done this a couple of times with plum branches broken down by snow.
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