As I write this, central Texas is experiencing its worst winter weather event in decades (so what else can I do but write?). Having done tree work here for 40 years now, I’ve seen quite a few cold weather episodes in Austin. There was a five day stretch in December of ’83 where we never got out of the 20’s. Many palms and most tallow trees around Austin froze to death that year, but there wasn’t any precipitation, so breakage from snow and ice wasn’t an issue.

Ice damage to live oak central Texas
A couple years later (’85) we had two events a couple weeks apart that totaled about 7 inches of snow but also pretty bad icing, and we got some breakage with that. In ’89 we got the coldest blast I can remember, down to about 4F, but it was a quick dip, and I don’t remember a lot of breakage with that one. (Am I sounding like an old man yet??) Over my four decades here, I’d say I’ve seen at least 8 ice events bad enough to result in at least some breakage. So they happen more often than you might think.
Okay, so what can you do about it? Continue reading