What a terrible blow, I'm sorry to hear what happened. Not to trivialize your disappointment, but this is something that happens on a large scale to people whose living depends upon their crop. A tornado, hailstorm, flood, drought, or whatever wipes out an entire cash or subsistence crop in one fell swoop. Farmer's know this eventuality can happen any time and it is part of man's battle against the elements. I don't mean to wax philosophical and I'd be upset to lose my garden as well. But this is the way of Mother Nature and there isn't much we can do about it except pick up the pieces and try to salvage those plants the best you can. BTW...where did this big storm happen? We had rumblings of a thunderstorm last night but it never cut loose here (in Georgia).

Not too huge, and even if they are, you will have to root prune them. In the fall, dig them up, root prune them so that you can put them into as large a pot as you can carry or about 12 inch diameter. I assume that is about the size you already have them in, in order to overwinter them anyway. If you miss some roots in the ground, then they will become fodder for the bugs anyway, and will enrich the soil for next year. Alternately, and what I do for some of mine, is plant them into pails with holes cut in the SIDES, not the bottom. Then the entire pail, containing the brug, is planted. I find that when watering, I can direct the water into the pail area, and know that the plant is getting sufficient water. In the fall, I merely take the shovel, and root prune the roots on the outside of the pail, lift the hole pail inside, slip it into another pail of the same size, and voila, I already have the baby in its pot ready for winter. There are several posts in the forum about this as well. See the link below, about a quarter of the way down. Here is a link that might be useful: see picture of tngreenthumb's pail with holes

Well, you certainly are having your share of weather recently!! I know you don't like all that water in your yard, but it beats getting hit by lightening. Glad you are okay through all that. I saw the news on TV too and it looked so scary!! It was all north of us though - not even a drop of rain. Ginny

G.M., We're fine but we had a pretty rough night. We had 3 to 4 separate waves of storms after the NOAA weather alert went off to let us know that bad weather was approaching from Jefferson County. Just about 3" of rain, high wind, power out, some tree limbs down, but nothing serious at our house.....well, except for a serious lack of sleep. Marietta had more damage in town than we had here. There was a strip of power poles along Hwy 77 south of town where one pole went completely down and then quite a few others snapped in half. We got our power back more quickly than Marietta did, I think, 'cause our particular power lines run up to us from Thackerville, instead of down from Marietta. We saw lots of ornamental pear trees split right in half, which is typical after a big windstorm. We made a quick run to Ardmore to Lowe's this morning so I could get bags of mulch. Figured if I couldn't plant, I'd mulch what's already been planted. You wouldn't believe how many trampolines we saw in the middle of nowhere.....fields and pastures.....alongside the road (with no houses nearby).....piled up on top of cars or sheds or swingsets or fences. None of those trampolines looked salvageable. During the worst of last night's wind and rain, (before the power went out....so we still had light to see by), our trees and shrubs were blowing in a rotating manner, but none of the trunks snapped. It is very wet and windy out there today. I am operating on a severe sleep deficit. I never really went back to sleep after the NOAA alert went off because every time I was almost asleep, it went off again for a total of 3 or 4 times. At least mulching is a easy task and I don't have to think real hard to to it. LOL Did you know the Roosevelt Bridge over Lake Texhoma was shut down half the night and most of today (one lane is currently open) because all the power lines and poles are covering the bridge? The stuff during the night was scarey, but I was more afraid of the storm cell that was moving our way sometime after 8 or 8:30 last night....it was the one that spawned a tornado or two near Breckinridge, Texas, and then very slowly and laboriously made its way towards us. Just south of Gainesville, though, it veered southeast towards Whitesboro. We had watched it on KXII for an hour or more and I was just relieved it slid south of us. On the radar at the time, it looked like we'd take a direct hit, but we didn't. That same cell may be the one that did all the damage that has been reported near Denison. It looks gorgeous outside today, but the wind is really blowing hard out of the west. Dawn