Hello, Dolly

Although you couldn't tell it from this shot, we are in clean-up mode from Hurricane Dolly. For a Category 2 storm, she sure packed a punch! The second side of a hurricane is supposed to have less rain and lower winds - but Dolly didn't follow those rules! Back to the photo above - this is a shot of our lawn which slopes down to the resaca (a.k.a. bayou or stream). See the line that runs across the middle of the water? The right side of it is where the resaca usually begins.

We had lowered the purple martin house - and it stayed above water! In the mornings and evenings, the martins will still perch on top of their waterfront home.

Most of the damage seems to be with large Mesquites (above) and Ash trees. I'm left trying to decide the best places to trim the damaged limbs.


Through the past years, we have slowly removed the old, diseased, and poorly formed Ash trees from our yard. My removal list was down to three - all of which came through the storm with very little damage. Ironically, the tree at the left is one I would have kept forever - but now is so damaged there is no way to save it.
Two days before the storm, I spent the morning trimming up this formerly overgrown Frangipani - Man, did it look gorgeous before Dolly did her thing!




Hurricane Dolly did reinforce the watering theory of "Water deeply but infrequently". Every tree that was uprooted in my yard or at our nursery got frequent irrigation - This one was located next to commercial material that receives daily irrigation. Another was beside a leaking irrigation valve. The exposed roots were just too shallow to hold the trees in place.

In spite of the hassle, we have spent fun days with our hurricane refuges (who still lack electricity at their homes) - and exploring our deeper and larger resaca in the canoes.