It was a beautiful sight Sunday morning, a dramatic display of white amid the apple trees. Blossoms galore, right Todd? Um, well yes, but they were barely discernible behind the blanket of snow. So on the eve of the 25th of May and a month of warm temps we received here in Walden just under 5 inches of snow.
It was pretty, no doubt about it when we woke up Sun am, pink and white blossoms, green lush leaves and a thick covering of wet snow. However, heavy wet snows and ample foliage do not mix, the result of which was broken limbs galore and many young trees in the nursery broken in half. There are a couple of lessons to be learned here. One, good tree structure (namely wide crotch angles) keeps those limbs from breaking under stress be it snow or crops. Secondly, young trees need to be staked for the first couple of years during the snowy months. The storm also did in another fleet of bud 9 dwarf trees we had in as a test (dwarf trees are awful for anyone needing a carefree existence). Lastly I’d say that the weather has been weird, now it is getting weirder. Places in Vermont passed the record for the wettest May in recorded history. May also is becoming a thunderstorm month in the region, which is another in a long list of anomalies.