Clatter Valley got hammered. Friday afternoon the sky got black as night, lightning flashed and driving rain and pounding hail, big as marbles, came crashing out of the sky. There was a tornado not far away. No electricity here for several days. What does all this mean for a garden that is comprised primarily of foliage, especially big bold foliage? Nothing good. Looks like Dick Cheney was hunting in the backyard. The leaves are blasted, the succulents are covered with divots--it's ugly. Clean-up, I'm afraid, will require little more than a machete and and a weed whacker. Much of what didn't get perforated got flattened, so either way its going to get cut down. Guess it will be interesting to see what bounces back, but at the moment it does not look promising. 
6 comments:
I am so sorry Steve! I do not know what to say... good luck with all your plants. I hope they grow back better than before the storm. Must be so hard for you still.
That canna looks pretty shredded. Here in Texas we see a lot of hailstorms. But luckily the damage is always short-lived. Hope your plants bounce back soon too.
Carol--thanks for the sympathy. Compost happens. On the plus side it's going to stretch my thinking about interesting ways to beef up the garden this season. I have a Garden Conservancy Open Day in Sept., so I'll come up with something.
Thanks Pam--I guess you do got bombarded in Texas. You've got all those lovely agaves--so what happens? That was the worst part: all my succulents--and they grow VERY slowly up here-are all pitted and dinged, and that's going to take a long time to go away I fear. Gardening is all about change, so I'm ready to embark on some new ideas. That's really not such a bad thing at all.
Steve, the agaves and succulents do get dinged up, but I find they recover pretty fast. I guess they scar over, because after a few months you don't even notice the damage. They do grow fast here though---long, hot summers are just what they like.
Oh I'm so sorry to read that your garden got hit by the hail. We were in Stamford Friday night and saw the hail and torrential rain, but luckily when we returned home to Branford on Saturday we learned that the storm had been much milder there and we had no damage. It really was the worst storm I've seen in a long time. I'm going to try and make it to your Open Day and I'm sure your garden will be just lovely.
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