The time period between February 11 and February 23 was exciting for the snow, ice, and cold, especially for power outages and boil-water status. Eventual return to pandemic normalcy was welcome. "What Really Happened During the Texas Power Grid Outage?" (Mar 23, 2021, runtime 16:47) is an informative video that described the deep freeze. It has loads of info about power grid, events, images, and animated graphs. The YouTube description also includes good content and links. A nice touch at end of video requests that commenters be respectful.
Environments outside were pictureworthy. I needed to take a few pix through windows, unwilling to venture into such bone-chilling cold and also risk ruining my camera. I created several composites and organized into groups that show ice, snow, and aftermath. Images are loosely organized as follows, but also include related items:
- Snow, ice, damages to tree branches and other plants
- Neighborhood walk February 12 (day after a big snow dump)
- Neighborhood walk March 11 post-thaw
- Additional related miscellany
I poked around the web for determining post-freeze damages for some plants. Also stumbled on some plant info I hadn't known before, and some that reinforced info from previous research.
Deep-freeze Damages
Two sources are from February 25, but seem to have content that describes the aftermath of the freeze.
"Were your plants damaged by the freeze? Here’s what to do next." includes a video that reiterates the article's text. It's San Antonio-centric, but looks applicable for Austin also. "Dead or dormant? How to tell if your plants survived Texas' winter blast" includes pix and info about damaged prickly pear and other cacti, palms, and sagos.
"Austin Texas 2021 Winter Storm - Deep Freeze Aftermath" from March 1, 2010 showed a homeowner's plants with snow and afterwards. Interesting to see how damaged some of the more deserty plants looked.
Some Plant Resources
The ones nearest and dearest to my heart for this article are sago, tree cholla, and cinnamon cactus. Pic'd in the video, but unmentioned in this section, are thread-leaf agave, photinia, and prickly pear.
Sago
"Cycas revoluta - 'Sago Palms' How to grow them from seed" provides good pix contrasting male & female characteristics. A more detailed, more caution-oriented resource is "How to Care for a Sago Palm (and Why They Are So Difficult)". "Cycads in the Landscape", like the other two sites, has loads of details. For a casual visitor, the illustration and characteristics identifiers are helpful.
The following videos are sago-owner oriented:
- "How to Prune a Sago Palm Cycas Revoluta"
- "TRIMMING A SAGO PALM FOR SPRINGTIME !" might be late for you to try anything, but might help.
- "How to Trim a Male Sago Palm"
"How to Prune a Sago Palm" didn't provide much in the way of images, but caught my eye with bulleted advice:
- Sago palms are toxic, so wear gloves and be careful when touching the plants. Also don’t let your animals near them or to eat them.
- Prune from the bottom up, clearing the fronds at the trunk by 6″ to 2ft. These are the oldest and lowest leaves and it helps increase air flow.
- Only remove completely dead and damaged fronds. Cutting healthy fronds can weaken the plant, but you can expose the trunk of the palm for ornamental purposes by removing extra fronds.
- Don’t trim sago palm fronds that are between 10 and 2 o’clock positions.
Related, "Is My Palm Tree Dead?" has lots of helpful info in the description box.
Tree Cholla
I asked for help in IDing an unusual deserty plant. "cholla" bubbled to my consciousness. I stumbled upon "jumping cholla", which didn't resemble the plant much. Shortly afterward, I received suggestions of "tree cholla" (Cylindropuntia imbricata), at Wikipedia and World of Succulents.
Definitely tree chollas are not to be confused to jumping chollas (Cylindropuntia fulgida). Visit "Flying cactus? 10 terrifying things you must know about jumping cholla - ABC15 Digital". Also, the YT link for "dangerous chollas" shows scary thumbnails! In any case, the post-thaw pic in the video looks good and green.
Cinnamon Cactus
Such a cute plant cluster, resembling miniature prickly pear "paddles"! I did Google image search with that description in mind. When I stumbled on a candidate plant, I spotted an image of a cinnamon cactus. The page at "World of Succulents" even parenthetically refers to it as "Cinnamon Bunny Ears". One image in my video contrasts the iced-over plant with the post-freeze thaw. As the homeowner scraped most other deserty plants, time will tell if it survives.
Related: "2023 Ice 'N' Arborgeddon" article | video
No comments:
Post a Comment