Post winter. How did we fare?

A post-winter situation report:

March is with us and as the weather is still chilly we have been taking the opportunity to check the garden over to look for damage following one of the hardest winters we've known for thirty years or so.  We were very fortunate not to have suffered from the harsh East winds that we had in the 1980s.

Structure

We have frost damage to many of Peto's rockery stones (pictured: japanese garden rock).  The damage will very likely be hidden by dwarf juniper, periwinkle, or whatever nature provides, but sooner or later the softer Bath stones need to be replaced with something more durable from the Mendip series of rocks which are, after all, just the other side of the river Frome.

Plants

The continued cold necessitates protecting the early buds of 'two star' shrubs (that is to say surviving down to -5C), especially cistus, choisya and rosemary in our case, using fleece and, where needed, netting as well.  Be very vigilant for the fleece covering pittosporums, which are particularly sensitive to sudden cold snaps.  We always remove fleece if it gets saturated because the frost will damage the tender shoots, particularly of the choisya ternata.

The cold has caught the leaves of the Mahonia (pictured), which has turned its explosive lateral sprays to gloriously autumnal colours.

However, [touch wood!] we have not had substantial damage to any Italian cypresses as yet.  Last year we had our second season of Seridium die-back.  It will be interesting to see which, if any, of our seven forms of sempervirens stricta survives this mediterranean plague.


Our ceanothus impressus has beaten the cold winter, but sadly all of our larger leaved forms appear to be dead, some of which were around 25 years old.

For anyone who has suffered plant damage, as we have, even though spring is running late, this is probably the last safe opportunity to plant many replacement shrubs and trees - preparing the hole whilst the weather is chilly is harder work, but it allows the freezing temperatures to break down the soil.  At Iford we will be replacing some of the Perry pears in the river car park with old varieties which have spent the last three years in a nursery bed, and pruning of the older trees is currently underway (pictured).