Oh no! I am so sorry. I know how it feel as I also had plants destroyed in windstorms. If you don't mind me asking, what plants got damaged? I might help you with replacing them if I happen to have them in my collection.

Not knowing what the plants were but I think if plants can't tolerate some abuse then I woundn't even bother growing them in the first place. Yet, that's my own personable attitude towards plants. I haven't always followed that rule but it seems the older I get and the more plants I have the more the plants need to be tough and hardy to grow with me.

Well, a little abuse is OK, I guess, but being completely smashed by a heavy trash can or a falling tree (in my case) is a whole different story. Many plants will not even tolerate if your big dog tramples them down but that for me is not a reason to NOT grow them.

Ron, are they salvageable? Was the tote empty?

I can pretty much compost everything that grows here. Almost anything larger than my thumb is burned in my woodstove. I would have no use for a yard waste tote. I'm all in favor of them though.

My recycle tote gets a lot of use.

Mike

Thanks for the offer. It's a band of a particular kind of snowdrops that have done well at Heronswood and a 6" pot of Potentilla x tonguei - which I had just been reading about. The cinque-foil took the worst of it, but I am sure nothing is dead.

Friends in Lynnwood had a heavy barbecue blown off their deck, girlfriend on Camano went without power for 12 hours. On the news last night they used a term like "hurricane force" to describe some of it.

This windstorm was worse than they predicted. Some places in the Sound got winds in 50-60MPH range and Mt. Baker got 109MPH. That is hurricane!

I'm unfamiliar with this Potentilla but Galanthus I love! Which cultivar? Heronswood has so many good ones! And speaking of Heronswood, will you attend their Spring Sale on April 2nd?

I'm likely to be there, although I didn't know about the details yet. I'm a member so I do get their e-mails.

The snowdrop is 'Pewsey Vale'. The friend I picked up and brought to the sale is a galanthus collector, said yes it does well - but the flowers are small. I could tell that already from the slender leaves and small fruits.

IME, the potentilla will be just fine......this is one of those plants
that seems to be able to withstand considerable abuse (I grow it myself)
and still thrive. You may be disappointed with the snowdrops this
season but again, they should come out of the melee looking good for
next year

Thanks for taking the time to write these assurances!

Looks like the bulbs were shielded by the perennial, whose container now looks like an accordian. But the occupant seems to be dusting itself off.

For some reason the strong wind missed me. No trees down, or even large branches. A few twigs and that's about it, and I'm up on a bluff. It faces east and north so that's what saved me.

A friend who lives in Woodinville said they got hit pretty good and was surprised at the lack of damage here in the Maple Valley area.

Mike

I planted a new baby Yuzu tree in the back of my house two weeks ago. With this wind every couple of days it will be a miracle if it makes it to summer alive with most of its leaves intact! I can't imagine what it's like even further to the west than Puget Sound.

Embothrium, if you make it to that sale and happen to be there past 1pm stop by Hold/Will Call Table at the back of the parking lot and introduce yourself. I will be volunteering there until 4pm on April 2nd. I hope the weather cooperates and I hope we will have some great plants for sale!

I had a cherished prunus mime snap off right at the graft line once in a high wind up here on Bald Peak. Heartbreaking. It was about 7 years old and just beginning to take on the gnarled appearance the Chinese revere it for.....

I have a prunus mume on my roof deck that I got bare-root in early February. I'm already paranoid enough about its lack of leaf bud activity this spring, the wind isn't helping! I've been checking on it hourly.

A percentage of them don't in fact come back to life after having been dug from grower's fields.

It flowered beautifully until a week ago when the last of the blooms dried out. I did a bark scratch test and there was lots of green. There haven't been any suckers coming up from the roots either, so I'm hopeful. How long do you think before I should give up?

If the flowers and stalks shriveled instead of dropping in the usual way that is not a good sign; the bark still being green is not evidence there is no problem. If the vendor still has any of the same stock left now or later you could check the progress of yours against theirs - obviously if you see a full leafing out and progression occur there and yours doesn't follow suit then that is a bad sign. Otherwise you will have to compare with other Japanese apricots in town. Of course, long established examples will have more active tops that your recent transplant. But again, if you see one in the area fully leafed out later and yours still has nothing going on at all, that will not bode well.

If it happens you don't know of others there are locations given in Jacobson, Trees of Seattle - Second Edition (2006). Naturally, after 10 years not all of those listed will necessarily still be present.