Beast From The East Leftovers

As you may all remember that fateful March day, the Beast from the East came knocking on our doors. It wreaked havoc on our trees, infrastructure, travel and our minds! The immediate damage was readily visible and tidied up appropriately but, the leftovers are still naked to the eye today. As you rumble down quiet country roads, you can still see remnants from the gusts. The Beast tipped over trees, broke branches and wind scalded conifers. What are we to do if we can see these sad sights in our very own gardens?

Tipped over trees can be very dangerous. They can be teetering upon their root plate (that is where all the main anchor roots grow out from) and may cause the tree to die or collapse. These need to be addressed right away by an accredited Arborist team. Some windblown trees may have dominated into each other and have broken their neighbour's branches when they flop over. Some may have broken branches just because of the wind loads on their weak branch structure. These also pose a safety and liability issue.

The broken branches (or even detached hung up ones) could fall on you or your garden guest over for tea. They need to be removed and the detached points corrected so the tree may callous over the wound properly. What about brown bits I can see in my conifers?

I have been watching over the last few months how the conifers trees have reacted to the wind scald caused by the storm. A lot of pines and cedars have dried out needles and scales along their branches, much akin to your face in the winter cold wind; it gets wind burnt! I have observed the tip growth to react well to continued growth with little die back. The dried needles have shed and some new growth pushed through. If you can still see brown or even bare branches in your trees, you should contact an arborist for an assessment as it could become an issue later on and be more costly.