Gail, it's ok to feel upset about this...yes, there are worse calamities in life, but I remember feeling devastated when my entire garden was trashed in ten minutes. Even the daylily scapes were destroyed! I feel like we wait a long time for our gardens to mature and come awake from winter dormancy and my garden is a huge source of happiness for me, so when my husband remarked, after the storm, that they were "just plants", lets just say that did not go over well. We here get it. The good news is that there is no permanent damage and it is still early so many of them may surprise you by sending up growth that will camouflage the damage. Some are better than others at that, like the Stained Glass family.

Hi, everyone, new to this forum, but we just had a severe hail storm in OKC, with golf ball to softball size hail. I've never seen or heard anything like it. We were all trembling and my cats were under the bed! Damage to cars, buildings, and my beloved garden. I only have a few Hosta including Sum & Substance, Titanic, Blue Angel, and Night B4 Xmas. All of these are at least 10 years old. The big Hostas are reallllly big. Nearly every leaf is shredded like paper, gouged, and close to destroyed. Upon your advice, I will leave all the foliage on the plants, and give it a boost with some time release fertilizer. I've never noticed any regrowth later in the season, but will keep an eye out now. My Arisaemas, ferns, Hydrangeas, and many other plants are just torn apart, literally. So sad..... Susan

hope this worked itself out for you!

I'm in Oak Park and was stuck under our carport when the hail started yesterday. It was neat but creepy at the same time. Hail here was up to 1". I went out this afternoon to survey the damage - ouch! The hail must have fallen pointing to the south as that side of our yard got nailed (the house protected some gardens - thank goodness! My bleeding hearts are definitely bleeding. So many of the branches were cracked/ripped right off. My hostas don't need slugs - hail ripped the leaves to shreds. The daffodils had already finished, but not too many leaves are left to feed the bulbs. I raked the front yard and filled a tall brown bag with leaves. The elm tree next door dropped all it's seeds and our front yard looks like it snowed. We drove through Oak Park tonight and it seems as if our corner of town got it the worst. Our neighbor said the last time he saw a storm like this was in 1992. More cleanup tomorrow.