SPRING!
Our harsh, cold winter is finally over (hopefully), but many of us are left with lots of damage to trees and shrubs. Here are a couple of tips to help when dealing with broken branches and crushed bushes.
Damaged tree branches should always be removed as quickly as possible, for the health of the remaining tree. It's also important to seize the benefit of dormancy and get the broken branches removed asap. If you have smaller bushes that have been crushed by large felled branches, pull the branches off and leave the shrubs alone until they start to green up. Once they are showing substantial spring greenery, prune away all of the dead and severely damaged parts.
A positive note in regards to the stretch of exceedingly low temperatures we endured through the winter. It may mean fewer insect pests this summer. Mosquitoes, for instance, overwinter in the adult stage and do best in warm winters. The cold winter should cut their numbers severely. (Especially if people set out traps for the few that do survive; just treat standing water with BTI granules instead of dumping it. That way, the few female mosquitoes that do make it will lay their eggs in water that won't allow new adults to emerge.)
And the wooly adelgid-the white, furry aphid that's been decimating hemlocks-requires warm winters to thrive. That makes our otherwise-wretched weather DOUBLE good news for the hemlocks, as they suffer when winter doesn't get cold enough, and were on their last legs in many parts of the country following this recent stretch of warm ones. The weather that has made us so miserable may well have given this entire species a second chance.
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