Sorry--I thought about covering them with big glass bowls/vases/jars--something to keep the fall leaves and tree seeds from settling in and around their crowns AND keep moisture off of them, plus direct it out from their zone a bit, while allowing light in. But then I thought I would simply cook and rot them because I would predictably fail to remove their cover to give airflow and mitigate condensation when I would be at work during the warm part of our wacky spring weather ...
They looked to have survived the worst of our winter cold alright, but rotted *after* the thaw-freeze-thaw-freeze cycle with all this excess precip started - i.e. sog-season
