Post Irma

All said and done, we went 8 days with no power, but got off lucky in the damage department.  A bit of trim from the eaves on the north side of the house came down, and a bit of fascia from above the garage dropped off.  Amazingly, all the screens on the porch remained intact, and 90% of the plants came through.  That’s one advantage of planting natives, I guess.  They’re used to hurricanes.

 

There are huge stacks of tree limbs on every street.  Our neighbor lost an extremely large oak.  Luckily it was in an empty lot, so only the squirrels lost a home.  My trees are all still small enough that they were severely leaning but not uprooted by the storm.

 

I’ve gone around and pushed the little trees back upright, and given some of them a support to hold onto until they get their feet back under them.  All of the plants at the far eastern end of the yard were leaning hard toward the south west.

 

Some of the salvia got snapped off, but there is new growth already coming in, so I’m hoping they’ll be fine.

The pentas took a licking as well, but they’re tough, so I’m not worried about them. The porterweed got snapped off hard but will come back, too.  The fire spike seemed to come through with no damage.

 

Right after the storm there were no blooms to be found, but this morning I saw a few more dots of color have come back.

 

And thank god the chickens were ok.

I can see some teeny tiny pink blooms starting to come out on the vitex.  If I like these beside the driveway I may add some more in the spring.  Funny how I like to try on plants in different locations.  I hate to try on clothing, but I’ll move a plant several times if I think it’s not working, or unhappy in that spot.  My goal is to to have a ‘see-through’ hedge effect, as well as add some more color to the acres of green lawn.

 

Now that I’m sitting in air-conditioning, and have hot showers available, and didn’t have to make my coffee on the grill, (I’ve discovered I’m capable of camping out, but not in favor of it), I can say that it was bearable.  I won’t complain because I know so many people are in dire conditions.  I’m grateful my little family and house came through just fine.

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