Wind damage

Wednesday was a horrible day with howling gales (along with the all too often April showers at the moment), so consequently there was some damage.

The poor honeysuckle was the first to cop it. I don't have an up close photo of it as it was only in bud but it's the bushy shrub in the top left, in front of the wall and behind the little red leafed tree. The wind was coming from behind the wall and just blew it and the trellis off the wall, and only the poor little tree was holding it up!

We were out in the howling wind trying to hold it up so we could hack it back, all whilst trying not to tread on too many plants in the flower bed underneath. It's not a pretty sight now and most of the flower buds have gone. I know it'll grow back (and we need to do something to hold it up a bit better as it's got really quite big with huge woody stems now, but that can wait for better weather) but it look a mess right now!

Later on we discovered that rather surprisingly, a conifer (Spruce I think) in the woodland area had snapped clean off. We'd never noticed that just above where it broke, the trunk forked off into two leaders, which is quite unusual. It landed on top of a Mirabelle plum, Elder and narrowly missed my lovely Hawthorn. Quite a few tall thin Elms were snapped in two as well. Luckily this was behind our wood shed/shack out in the woodland so the top of the tree was leaning against the tin roof, so that's probably why the other trees underneath didn't get totally flattened.

It'll be a bit brighter in this corner now half this tree has gone!
 

Oh well on the plus side, at least there is some firewood here, but it needs to season for several years; the downside is getting rid of loads of branches which will mean a number of trips to the tip with our little trailer. The other trees survived but have branches and bits knocked off but Elder is very resilient, so although it looks a bit of a mess I'm sure it will be fine. It was just that it happened in a spot which looks pretty at various times from the blossoms of all three trees. The Mirabelle has only produced one fruit in 7 years so I will chop that back as it's all bent over now; if it doesn't like it it's not like I'm going to be missing any fruit! Why it was ever planted here in the first place I have no idea.

As for my poor old Purple Sprouting Broccoli! It was already leaning over at an angle as the veg patch is very exposed and I have to stake tall veggies up. But now most of them are flattened, but they've not done well this year and some of the main stems are rotting and I've no idea why. Some are only just starting to get flower buds which is so late.

It could have been much worse, but even so it's still a shame when trees and shrubs are damaged, but I'd rather a bit of that than find the chicken shed tin roof in the next door field. Or even my own house roof, god forbid!