We here around Albany NY had 5 inches of rain, winds were 35 mph max, so nothing really threatening up here, though we were close to the eye. I cleared already most of the fallen leaves, no big branches came down, only 2 bundles of small branches, had no power outage, though state of emergency was declared. Except those next to rivers, no problems here. Hostas are fine, love that water.
Bernd

We are three hours inland so all we got was about 1 1/2 inches of rain, and some lawn furniture and small branches blown around

chris

Gardens okay - road & bridges not.

Here in Vt we experienced severe state-wide damage primarily due to rain and not the wind. Many roads and bridges washed out as well as structual and water damage to homes and business.
I'd be suprised if all infrastructure was restored before the snow flies.

Just got power back today after about 36 hours without. We got 6 inches of rain, which the Hostas loved. Peak winds were about 60 mph. My trees are fine, just a few branches down. I need to stake up a Buddleia and a Lilac which were recently planted, but other than that the gardens look great.

Steve

Sounds great so far though there still may be areas not heard from because of power problems. It is nice that Hosta don't need electricity. 36 hours without power is really "iffy" re. my 2nd hobby - tropical fish. In the winter it would kill them.

Les

The gardens are fine. My horse fence, barn floor and nerves not so well. Lots of roads and bridges gone. I had my own private island for 24 hours. Spent most of the time pacing worrying about the horses who ran for high ground out back. Other livestock I had brought up near the house.

Here is a link that might be useful: flood pics

We got our power back this afternoon. Thankfully it's fairly cool out, so cleaning up the debris helped to cure the boredom during the outage.

Irene was rough here. As for the gardens, a few flower beds got flooded by the creek. Our street turned into a small lake for several hours. The wind wasn't any nicer. All the cockscombs were flattened. A large brug was laying on several hostas. Several other brugs were on their sides. I had to prune the lantana today - it was flattened and covering more hostas. The amaranthus had to be staked. Luckily, none of the trellises were blown away... just toppled over, so they had to be staked too. The dahlias... I have no idea what's wrong with them now; they're severely wilted - probably drowned. Pepper plants are on their sides. Tomato/cages bent and falling over. Cannas and bananas shredded. I'll probably just pull up most of the damaged annuals. Now I have an excuse to go out and get some fall flowers.

Not much damage on the hostas. A few scapes were bent, so I'll likely lose some seed pods. However, most of the seed pods should make it, and I doubt I'll have to water the plants for several days. I guess it could have been worse.

I hope everyone else made it through alright.

(I know, I know. I've planted sun-loving plants with shade-loving hostas... long story.)

Like many others, I prepared very well for the hurricane. New batteries for my big Maglite flashlight, several cans of tuna and other eat-from-the-can stuff, filled every pitcher with water and put it in the fridge, bought plastic sheeting in case a window got slammed by a flying branch, parked my car away from any trees, even laid in a good supply of hurricane food for my lizards (in the form of waxworms). Very fortunately, I did not lose either electricity or telephone service, as did some of my friends here in Flushing or on Long Island. We got somewhere between 7 and 8" of rain from Hurricane Irene. I saw that the low spots on the street were flooded. The winds maxed out at about 65 mph or so, resulting in a few downed trees and many downed limbs and leaves. We had a tornado right here last year, so that already thinned the herd of rotten branches, plus the post-tornado tree trimming that was done.

My hostas were completely unaffected, as they are close to the ground. The only thing I noticed (and corrected) was that bunches of oak leaves, some with acorns, had been scattered over them. I picked all of those up, and voila, everything is back to normal. The two 8" clay pots of geraniums which sit upon a 6" high garden border fence were knocked over, but the geraniums were fine and the pots didn't break. All I had to do was put them back in place.

I will tell you that Saturday night was pretty scary, laying in bed and trying to sleep when you didn't know whether the window would suddenly implode from the wind. My cats felt the same way and were all huddled up with me. Fortunately, the windows were fine, nothing broke.

I just hope that we don't have either any more tornados OR hurricanes around here!