The day that the snow came to Rose Villa

Boy oh boy winter roared into the Portland area this last weekend! We had 4" of snow and then the temperature dropped to the low 20's. This photo is of the Grounds boss, Bob and you can tell he had a really great time riding around on the snow plow.

Oh I know this may not be much of a winter storm for many people, my own sister back in Plymouth Mass. is suffering through far worse, but in this neck of the woods 4 inches of snow shuts the city down, the kids get a day or two off from school and all the tire shops make a fortune selling studded snow tires. The weathermen are calling this the worse winter weather since early 1990's. The grounds crew here at Rose Villa has worked two days now clearing sidewalks and streets and laying down ice melter and sand.

It has been a long time since we have experienced seriously cold temperatures here on this hillside just south of Portland. At least 18 years by my count and perhaps even longer. I am concerned that we have been lulled into a false sense of security as far as plants being able to live through the winter. The last time it was below freezing for any extended time, back in the early 90's, I remember we lost a good many Sasanqua Camellias and pyracantas and many other plants that got burned by the wind chill. So it will very interesting to see what gets damaged by this cold spell.
This is our old friend Marmalade Mist from the last post. You can see it's crown is buried by the snow. Back in the old days we would cover the roses with composted chicken manure, but we haven't done that in a long time so seeing what the cold does to our rose gardens kinda makes me nervous. We could have some serious damage but then our rose gardens are definitely a survival of the fittest kind of thing so this will weed out the weak roses that may have pretty blooms, but just don't have that winter hardiness that so many others have.








This photo is an example of what can happen when you let your inner child come out; note the cookies for eyes. They said the cookies were for the birds. Hopefully after this photo op they were headed inside for something hot and spicy.

Here's the photos from the last post, the one on the left is a flowering quince, Chaenomeles speciosa and the one on the right is a strawberry tree, Arbutus unedo.

I'm headed into the Christmas party now, eat cookies, drink punch and sing carols. It's just starting to snow again, I sure hope it's coming down hard when we launch into 'White Christmas'.