ice storm damage

[Yellowdog]

We had a mild ice storm in S. Central Texas. So far, not a lot of tree limbs broken. Have not seen a lot of downed trees either but I have noticed a number of my oaks are weighted down with the crowns pulled nearly to the ground on a few trees. I know trees are resilient but I do not have any experience with ice damage. Will these trees eventually spring back assuming they are just bent and not leaning from an uprooting? Any information on ice damage would be appreciated. I do not want to unnecessary cleanup or pruning if time will help the tree "straighten up".

Thanks--YD

 

[SilentElk]

Not sure on oaks, but in CO, limbs that get wet (which yours likely are very) and stay down for a few days dont always spring back. It's a crap shoot. They almost always spring back to some extent and most will be close. Duration bent is a big key.

We get heavy snow, not ice storms so I dont know how to go about safely removing the ice.

 

[treeseer]

You're smart to hold off on pruning and bet on resilience.

You can help by pushing up on the limbs and stems that are bent and shaking gently.

If limbs break, they do NOT need to be pruned to the collar. Jsut take them back to the first good node behind the break, like the tree indicates.

 

[Yellowdog]

Since my last post we had a chance to get out and survey the damage. Found a number of trees snapped off about mid way up. Mostly small live oaks and shin oaks about 4-6" dbh. The live oaks still have plenty of leaves and many, many are drooping. Our junipes (ashe juniper) cedars are also drooping heavily. Many torn juniper limbs which are not a priorty. Have over 100AC but concentrated on critical oaks so we could cut broken branches to nodes and then painted to help seal out any bugs when temps start to rise in a few days. I have been worried about storm damage like this for a while because of the proximity of oak wilt and lack of long term cold to slow beetle populations.

We'll see what tomorrow will bring. Hopefully we are in the thaw stage but saw a number of limbs just pop and crash to the ground while we were surveying damage. Wow, ice makes a loud sound when it falls in the woods!
I sure hope the trees are resilient and haven't been stretched too much or for two long. This started about 36 hours ago. Had over 1.5 inches of heavy, wet ice, some snow, and lots of sleet on trees and everything else. For a S. Texas guy, it's sure fun learning to walk on that kind of ground!

Thanks for the info thus far..

 

[M.D. Vaden]

Portland gets a few of these - nothing too devastating the past 10 years.

But I remember one really nasty one about the time I was in middle school. In fact, I think there were several fairly bad ones back them within a 5 year period of time - east Portland got it worse on two of them.

But one was wicked.

It's too bad it does so much damage because it's one of the coolest looking situations with all the coated foliage and stuff.

 

[Yellowdog]

Here's a pic typical of the damage.

Used to be able to see the swing set behind these little trees and ride a lawnmower under them but now they are all the way to the ground. We are thawing now but at its worst, there was 1.5 inches of ice accumlated on the trees and leaves.