If they don't bend back up later you are either going to have to rope them together or remove and replace with other selections that don't do that.

The low-forking habit of columnar cultivars is abnormal. I've got a 'Rheingold' that opened up like a flower in the snow. Since it is beginning to bulge over the drive, right in front of the garage I may invoke "garden opportunism" and take it out.

While running errands, looking around town, lots of arborvitaes look exploded. Tree trimmers will not be out of work for a long time.

If you rope them together will they naturally grow cohesive this summer? Can you ever remove the rope?

I was rather pleased to see the only significant damage our yard sustained was to our arborvitaes. I've been planning to remove them and have been mulling around a replacement plan for a couple years. Better get that finalized, because these won't be around much longer!

I'm just glad they didn't harm the hinokis I have in temporary holding in front of them!

{{gwi:1095911}}

Our arborvitaes splayed during a particularly heavy snowfall a few years ago. We cut them down to where the splaying started and they were just fine. The city of Olympia did the same thing to the ones growing on city property. They looked awful for a while, but soon grew back to their old selves.