really need a picture for best advice ... arbs are conifers.. and there is a specific forum for such .... if you dont get decent answers here .... you can buy some twine ... and loosely tie them back into shape.. and HOPE that they can strengthen themselves this year ... maybe they will maybe they wont .... the problem with arbs.. is that as they get bigger/older .. they become less and less able to handle snowload ... especially in those extra snow years ... it may be time to think of a new plan for them ... maybe you can plant some other type of replacements ... so that in 3 to 5 years.. when these are really ugly .. you can remove them ..... and have the replacements well on their way .... ken

i would find a 'tree doc' who has a BETTER IDEA THAN TOPPING .... geez .... sounds profitable to him.. and maybe not the best thing for the trees ..... and i wouldn't trust someone who gives advice over the phone without inspection of the trees .... that all said.. i am sure he is swamped after such a storm ..... i think you have to get rid of the one hanging over the garage ASAP .... and give the others some time.. to let the pro's get over the immediate storm results ........ like that advice is any better than over the phone... lol .... frankly .. it hard to tell you what to do without pix at a minimum ... when the emergency is over .... i would get at least 3 independent opinions as to what to do with the others .... most opinions are free ... what do the rest of you think .... ken

I'm with Ken on this one. Either a single leader arb, such as 'Degroot's Spire' or ideally something even more unique. Since you mentioned it's a narrow space, I'd consider Picea glauca 'Pendula', you can pick up a 1.5ft offering from Conifer Kingdom for like $25 bucks...The tree is stunning, narrow, and will not splay like your current Smaragd...There are others you could consider as well depending on how much light the space gets, you could also consider Picea pungens 'The Blues' or Picea Abies 'Gold Drift'.. Don't plant during the summer, it's probably too late for spring planting, I'd spend the summer thinking about it and place an order in the fall

Kadasuki - What kind of trees have you lost so far? We cut down a silver maple in our back yard after our big ice storm here two years ago. It might have lived but it looked pretty bad. We cut down an Autumn Blaze(I think) maple in our front yard that had extensive damage but kept another, same kind of maple, that wasn't quite as bad. We had two London Plane trees that had only a few broken limbs. We cut down one while we had people here to help us because it was planted in a bad spot and kept the other. We kept a tulip tree that still looks pretty awful and probably should've been cut down. My parents have one about the same age that had heavy damage but has recovered nicely. Their hard maples looked horrid but they kept them. They're not recovering well at all. Still have no tops and a really weird shape. We have a pin oak in our front yard that did pretty well. It had the very top broken off but it looked good compared to some of our other trees. They don't tolerate limey soil very well if you have that. The worst thing about them is the way the limbs continually grow down. It makes them hard to mow under. You would need to make sure it's not too close to any buildings because it's hard to keep the limbs trimmed up away from the roof. We had a red mulberry that had nothing left but part of the trunk and we had to have it taken out. It surprised me how badly some of the oak trees did around here. Some that were very old that lost huge limbs. I think you're smart to drive around to see what looks the worst and also try to note which trees regain their shape after being damaged.