Photo credit: Baltimore Sun/Kenneth K. Lam
The snow is melting, slowly, around my house in Annapolis and the damage to my foundation plantings is beginning to reveal itself.
And it isn't pretty.
The fothergilla gardenii across the front of my house has been crushed and broken. If the snow hadn't been 40 inches deep, I might have been able to get to them with a broom and brush most of it off.
But by the time I could make my way across the yard, the snow had turned crusty and icy and I was worried that I'd do more harm than good.
Laura Mathews, a Pennsylvania gardener and photographer and the spirit behind the community garden blog Punk Rock Gardens, has posted pruning advice from arborist Jon Schach, who says some of our shrubs can be revived and some can't. And some make take pruning that we aren't skilled enough to do.
"For other woody plants damaged but salvageable, you may just need to take a breath, get over the loss of aesthetic, and deal with it," he writes.
In addition, Cylburn Arboretum on Greenspring Avenue in Baltimore holds free workshops on pruning trees and shrubs. There is one Saturday from 9-2. For more information, e-mail nancy.hill@cylburnassociation.org