Hail-resistance tips for Colorado gardeners
Hailstorms are a fact of life along the Front Range. The combination of where the Eastern Plains sit in relation to the Rocky Mountains, and the clashing wind currents from the east, is a key ingredient for perfect hail-producing thunderstorms. Landscapes are especially vulnerable in June and July.
Hail may be inevitable, but gardeners can plan ahead to minimize damage during storms.
• Plant native perennials that are well-adapted to Colorado's wild weather. Use the list of hail-resistant plants found in Lauren Springer's book, "The Undaunted Garden: Planting for Weather-Resistant Beauty."
• Maintain a healthy garden so it can bounce back from damage.
• Choose plants with narrow leaves that can withstand pelting rain and hail.
• Limit flowering plants with large leaves that shred easily in a hailstorm.
• Use natural features, like walls and fences, to shelter trees and shrubs.
• Plant delicate flowers under trees for added protection.
• Build hail guards over tender vegetables using lumber, hardware cloth, screen door material or PVC pipe and sheets of clear, unbreakable plastic.
• Keep trees pruned to prevent damage to branches during severe weather.
• Plant in containers that can be quickly moved under cover before a storm begins.
Jodi Torpey, Special to The Denver Post
Editors's note: The following article was originally published on June 16, 2010.
Gardeners in the Denver metro area are in the process of cleaning up their landscapes after a powerful storm shredded plants and littered lawns with leaves torn from trees.
We feel your pain.
Many Front Range gardeners understand what it feels like to have a beautiful garden one minute and find it in tatters the next in the aftermath of a hailstorm. The best advice for those with hail-ravaged yards: Wait and see.
Last summer, the morning after the July 20 hailstorm, the phones in CSU's Jefferson County Extension office started ringing the moment extension agent Mary Small walked into her office.
"We were inundated with calls from homeowners worried about their landscapes," she said. "They lost a lot of vegetable crops and flowers, but they were very concerned about their trees."
The staff listened to homeowners' concerns and made recommendations about cleaning up the leaf litter and removing dead or broken stems and branches. They told callers to cut back annuals and perennials, water, lightly fertilize and wait and see.
Within a month, Small said some flowering trees, like crabapples, were blooming and re-leafing as if it were spring.
"Plants can surprise us," she said. "Trees and shrubs can tolerate some defoliation. Trees have a built-in backup system for re-leafing with a secondary set of leaves."
If hail hits early in the season, like the Commerce City storm, gardeners may want to replant. If it hits later in the season, they could choose to start over with quick-growing leafy greens or to wait and plant a fall garden.
Michael Kass of Parker replanted his garden after it was destroyed by a June hailstorm last season. Then it hailed again later in the summer.
Kass said it never hailed in New Jersey, where he gardened for many years. But since moving to Colorado a decade ago, he's struggled.
"You put a lot into the garden and you can lose it all in a second here," he said. While assessing the damage, Kass had to decide which plants to pull, which to prune and which to replant.
With some plants, like annuals, it was an easy choice for him. For other plants, like the pumpkins he started from seed, it was too late to replant because there wasn't enough season left for the vegetable to mature.
Peter Bockenthien of Lakewood has experienced hail in his garden before, but it was nothing like the thunderstorm that hit during the night of July 20 last year.
"It was less a hail event than a weak tornado," he said.
Bockenthien said the storm whipped ping-pong-ball-size hail horizontally for 10 minutes and caused uniform damage to his 600-square-foot garden. All of his annuals and perennials looked as if they had been mowed down with a lawnmower.
"Everything was chopped off about 6 inches above the ground. The berry canes were completely stripped of their leaves and fruit," he said. "Apple trees were also stripped and the grape vines obliterated."
In the days after the storm, he cleaned most of the debris and thought his garden was gone for the summer.
But he was pleasantly surprised to see things begin to grow again after only two weeks. After 36 days, he said, the garden appeared as bountiful as it had in late April.
"Roses were blooming again, tomatoes and squash were setting out flowers, the carrot tops and perennial flowers had sprouted. In the long run, my garden will be stronger for it," he said.
Char Gottlieb, a master gardener in Arvada, takes a slightly different approach to having her hard work destroyed by hail.
"After the storm, get mad," she said. "I've always told people not to look at the garden for two weeks."
Gottlieb tends 10 acres she's named Willow Pond Ranch, which includes open fields, mature trees, vegetables, flowers and fruit trees.
The July hail shredded most of her garden, including a crop of Bibb lettuce that got pounded into compost, she said.
"But in four weeks, it was coming back with beautiful heads of lettuce," she said.
Gottlieb said after the initial cleanup, it's important to keep a hail-blitzed garden watered. She recommends lightly fertilizing annuals and leaving trees and shrubs alone.
"What I noticed around here is that some apple trees started blooming again and other trees were trying to re-leaf. But this puts stress on trees and takes energy away from it."
Gottlieb said there are long-term effects from destructive hailstorms, but gardeners need to have patience and take a wait-and-see attitude.
"It may take years to see the full effect of the storm," she said. "It's a learning experience, and in some ways it's fascinating.
"The only consolation is that we don"t depend on gardening as a livelihood."
Jodi Torpey is the author of "The Colorado Gardener's Companion: An Insider's Guide to Gardening in the Centennial State." Reach her at jodi@WesternGardeners.com.