The first of our two blizzards began last Friday and Federal workers were released four hours early. Federal offices, including the Arboretum, remained closed through yesterday, Thursday. I had scheduled myself off for today as I had several appointments and some tasks that were better done on a weekday. Nonetheless, I did go by the Arboretum early this afternoon to see how things were.
There was much beauty and a fair bit of devastation. I have focused on the beauty here. The Holly Magnolia collection was particularly hard hit; magnolias have soft wood and evergreen Holllies can catch a good bit of snow. Suffice it to say that Pat has his work cut out for him. A medium sized Hemlock near the road and a few medium-sized broken branches were all the damage I could see in Fern Valley from the road. We had a large tree fall in the Asian Collections, as well as our share of breakage. Gotelli had issues I could see from the road but seemed, again from the road, to have come through as well as could have been expected. There is cleanup to be done when the snow melts!
2 comments:
I fear what the snow will uncover around DC. Yesterday I saw a huge loss of the evergreens around the Takoma DC metro. Just horrid. Hope the Gotelli collections fares much better.
I agree. Of course the evergreens catch snow so efficiently and predictably incur serious damage. I remember, from my time at Behnke's, getting phone calls about cut-leaf Japanese maples with major breaks. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
Sitting in the exit lane from 495 to Georgia Avenue yesterday, I did notice narcissus nosing up in the small thawed area adjacent to the sound wall. The ground was thawed when the snow fell and I expect to see a lot of happy bulb foliage when the snow finally disappears!
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