Fred - I did NOT know about the lattice. That is a brilliant idea! Is your lattice the vinyl lattice? I never even thought of using lattice to keep the armadillos out of my garden beds. That is a great idea! I may have to rig something up as I have a lot of lattice laying around that I could really put to good use as a make-shift low fence since I have a problem with armadillos here, too. Thanks for the explanation!

I "think" it is an armadillo digging up areas of my backyard .... do opossums dig deep small holes, too? I've had both critters in my yard. If it is an armadillo, then the poor thing has gotten trapped in my backyard inside the privacy fence. If it is a opossum, then it is climbing in and out of my backyard. Raccoons don't dig like that, do they?

I have way too many wild critters in my area ... !!!

I have two rose arbors. Yours is beautiful! What is the rose cultivar?

My 4 climbing roses on the two arbors, believe it or not, are growing from large containers because of the root-knot nematodes here in central FL. Though I do have a Don Juan climbing rose that is growing in the ground and has been for years. The climbers I have growing on my arbors are Old Blush Climbing Roses and Cramoisi Superieur Climbing Roses. I love both cultivars except for one thing ... the blooms have no scent. But they have been growing and blooming in pots for several years now ... so I won't complain about the lack of scent. And they do cover the arbors which is what I was hoping they would do. I am a cottage gardener at heart.

spunky1 said:
Have lived here since 1990 and never seen this much ice
We had no snow, just sleet and ice photos taken 1/29/2014

No snow here either, just ice

This is what some of mine looked like 1/30/2014; the first 2 photos are in my hybridizing area. The shade cloth is not on my area (thank goodness) and neither James Hall or I thought about taking it down. It's been so long since we've had ice and I don't think it has happened with his shade cloth up (which he leaves up year round). Notice in the last photo that it bent the poles over At least it only broke one of the sprinkler head pipes; several were bent way over and I'm surprised they didn't break






Here are some more photos of Fred's place taken last May

Ice can sure do a lot of damage. That is too bad about the shade cloth.

Fred has a beautiful place. Those are some great pictures!

Will you lose all those plants Michel? It looks awful.

No I won't lose all of the plants, most will come out of it. I am planning to go over to the garden today and trim all the foliage on the ones that look the worst. There are some I did lose for sure but not many right now. The big thing right now is to try and make sure they don't get rot. Since our weather has been so up and down the problem is when it's warm the plants want to grow and when it freezes the young, tender new growth gets mushy and when it warms up again that mush can turn to rot and also the plants start to grow and then we get a freeze and the new growth gets mushy. If it would just stay cold or frozen I think the plants would do much better but with the warm days the mush doesn't have time to harden and die off well and the mush gets rotty and causes problems.

It's not so bad on clumps as the taller foliage acts as a protector for the plants. The problem is with the recently potted plants that are single or double fans or the smaller ones planted in the ground and have more of the new center growth exposed, if that center growth gets mushy and goes down into the growing tip and rots then most likely the plant will die. Sometimes the crown will send two side shoots out sort of like when you cut a tree branch and the main one will no longer grow but usually sends out two side shoots. Sometimes these will do good but other times they struggle.

Michele I sure hope you don't lose to many and the weather straightens out. This must be very hard work and very stressful.

Thanks for the comments everyone.
Becky said
I "think" it is an armadillo digging up areas of my backyard .... do opossums dig deep small holes, too? I've had both critters in my yard. If it is an armadillo, then the poor thing has gotten trapped in my backyard inside the privacy fence. If it is a opossum, then it is climbing in and out of my backyard. Raccoons don't dig like that, do they?

I have all the same critters plus skunks, they all dig holes hunting worms and grubs. The lattice is only 12" tall so the only thing it keeps out are the dillos which is by far the worse in this area.

I though about that shade cloth and was afraid that would happen, I think it happened once before because of snow.

Thanks for posting the photos Michele.

Michele - Oh my!!!! How horrible! I am glad that none of yours were under that shade cloth. Wow! What a mess! Ugh! I hear you about the weather extremes making the daylilies higher risk for rot. I wonder how much more of this crazy weather we will have before Spring actually arrives? Sometimes we gardeners seem to have endless challenges ... especially the ones that we didn't expect. Sheesh .....

Also, thank you for posting those photos of Fred's place. Beautiful!!!!

I had to laugh ... I have the same or similar wicker furniture on my screen patio. Mine is not real wicker, but a vinyl wicker. I love it! That is so funny that Fred (or is it his better-half?) who chose these hardscapes and furniture piece? I approve of those choices!!!

And I love, love, love that seating arbor! I am going to show that to my hubby. We built all the arbors in our yard so he could probably build a seating arbor too. I just love the seating idea! I have an area where I need another arbor and never would have thought of adding seats as part of the arbor structure! Wonderful idea!

Thanks so much for sharing all the photos of Fred's yard! Eye candy for the gardener during Winter!

Fred - Did you build all these structures yourself or did you purchase them? Thanks for the info about all the digging critters. I am going to have to go outside one night and see if I can catch whatever critter it is digging up my yard. If it is in fact an armadillo, then I need to release it outside of my fence. If it is a climbing critter then there is little I can do except give approval that it is aerating my yard. (sigh)

I have actually went out and watered my shrubs and the new trees I put in last fall because the winds and low humidity has caused the air to be so dry. The ground here is dry as dust and there are burn bans in most counties. (like who would be out here burning anyway?!) I think lots of people think that plants don't need watered in the winter, but that is not true. Just a reminder to check.

I always water my plants before a freezing night. I have heard it will protect the roots from drying out and being killed.

Michele, you took some lovely photos of Fred's garden. Everything looks so
neat and well placed. Loads of work to keep it that way too.

Awful about the ice damage. I hope everything lives. I hope everything
lives here too. After the snow and ice, we now have 2-3 days of rain on the mush.
No time for anything to dry out yet. Keeping fingers crossed for everyone involved.

The Wicker is real, Kathleen got it several years ago, it has been repainted twice, which is not a fun job. I did not build the seating arbor, it was originally made for a swing, I had the seats added before it was delivered about 2003. All the rest I did myself.

beckygardener said:I always water my plants before a freezing night. I have heard it will protect the roots from drying out and being killed.

We were told the same thing but several people I know have tried this with the daylilies and it seems to do more harm than good most times. Pat Stamile has tried this as well and found it causes more problems.

Hmmmm .... I wonder why?

I don't think it is a good idea to have freezing water over the crown.