Hang in there, the cold will be gone and the sun will be out. Your your garden will grow beautifully again with birds chirping.

Jin

I feel for you but I agree with Virginia that many plants will return. It's still full winter here with snow coming down every day, not welcome in March. The poor birds are singing because the sun has returned and we have to fill up our feeders every day.. Nearly all plants are below snow level but the deer manage to find the bamboo that's not quite covered by snow. A group of three deer spend the night among the rhododendrons, sometimes on top of the smaller ones. I wish we had wolves, too. One lone wolf was spotted at the other side of our large lake a couple of years ago but it didn't stay on it's way back to the north. A few wolves have been transplanted south to improve the gene pool of the few local wolves but they go back home as soon as possible. I haven't seen a fox since 2013. They are said to predate on newborn deer. The latest fox was seen on 7 April 2013, another terrible spring.

Yes, your mood will improve when the sun comes out! That ice storm sounds like it was epic! Your garden will recover, but of course now looking at the destruction in the gloomy weather, it is depressing. Wolves! Wow - congratulations! They have been trying to re-introduce them in No California. Usually they just immediately head back home (North - into Canada), but evidently in the last few years some have established packs/families.

Here we are happy because it is RAINING! No rain to speak of since the middle of January, until a few days ago. Nothing whatsoever in Feb, which is usually one of our rainiest months. So far this winter we have gotten about 13 inches of rain, vs over 50 by this time last year. Anyway, it has been raining for 2 days, and it is predicted to rain for another 4 days (that is about 4 storms total). This is our normal weather pattern in the winter - so glad to see it back. Of course, the rain will ruin the blossoms on the just-in-full-bloom flowering crab apple tree, but I don't care.

Hope your sun comes out soon -

Jackie

Wishing for the best for you and your husband, Melissa. I am hoping your plant damage is less than you fear. "April is the cruelest month" might fit here, although it is March.

I sympathize with you Melissa, although I can’t relate exactly. Yet, everyone has something. Spring will come, and I’m sure there will be some delightful surprises. Long spells of gray weather are apt to bring many a mood down. I’m happy that you’ve had moisture, and the survivors will perhaps benifit from the winter chill. I think it’s quite exciting that wolves are in the area, although I’d be a little “extra observant” after dark, too.

We are expected to get some rain tomorrow. It’s desperately needed. We’ve had but 2.5” of our “normal” 8” for this time of year, and our last rainy month is usually March. While our weather is nice and cool now, I’m already spoiling it, by dreading summer. The onset of spring only means the summer of suffering is coming, for the both the garden and myself..... Lisa

Thanks for all the supportive comments. I do realize that much of the damage to the garden is not really fundamental, and I wouldn't trade with those of you who are dealing with drought and looking forward to summer starting in a month or two. I'm glad our temperatures are mostly in the thirties to fifties, and that, while the days are getting longer, we're still not really into spring yet.

The problem is that this has been going on for so long. 2017's drought began in fall 2016 and went on for a year, with a nasty heat wave (and no air conditioning) in the summer; that was followed by the ice storm at the end of fall--Jackie, yes, it was epic--and the recent run of cold, severe by our standards, and snow. The latter are good and I welcomed them, but they do cause a lot of incidental damage when they descend on a Mediterranean garden. And the animal damage has just grown and grown, aggravated by our dog's death last summer. I never realized until he was gone how much he did to keep wildlife away from around the house: we didn't have foxes and badgers looking in our living room window while he was alive.

Virginia, I'm hoping having finally some truly cold weather will discourage some of the bug population, but the growing damage from mammals comes from wild animals moving into territories that are being abandoned by humans. The Italian mountains and hills have been emptying since WWII and the process is still going on. We've seen the changes since we moved to the farm in 2002: when we first came here there were no deer, no wolves, and no porcupines (also no rose cane girdler and no box moth); they've moved in successively, the porcupine being the most recent, dating from a year or two ago. I want bears, now, and who knows, perhaps in time they'll show up. Anyway, there's a lag between the appearance of pests--animals that feed on garden plants--and the appearance of the appearance of their predators. I'm hoping the predator population will increase and reduce that of the mammal pests. Wolves are unpopular, most people not seeming to realize their importance in controlling the vast wild boar and deer population. Personally, I can't wait. We also have foxes, and saw quite a bit of them last summer during the drought: they hung around the house looking for water and, possibly, prey in the form of kittens of the neighbors' farm cats. I suspect the wounds in their flanks that both our cats suffered last year were due to foxes. Marianne, I'm interested to hear about wolves in your area, as I've always had the impression that you lived in a town or suburban environment. Deer, of course, are everywhere.

I hope you Californians continue to get rain, or that it arrives! I remember the collective sigh of relief at last year's rains, and the dismay at the more return of drought conditions. I'm happy about our own recent rains and snow.

Hi, Melissa, sympathetic nods here at your gardening trials this winter. I can relate to the gratitude for rain as well as dismay over continual gray skies too. And, we had happy reports of a cougar in the area this winter, well fed I hope by the ready supply of ever present deer here too. After the cleaning up I hope you have a glorious summer and your well loved friends return, unscathed by the seeming winter damage. Sometimes Vitamin D helps my spirits in the gloomy gray season. Sometimes only spring and sun help, though. Gean

Melissa, it's so ironic that the conditions that fill you with dismay make me very happy, i.e. the gloomy weather, which means I can be outside during the day without burning my pale skin. Of course every drop of rain is precious, and we're hoping for more, although it and the Sierra snow pack are not nearly up to what they should be.

Hurray for the wolves. I hope there are many more than the one you saw. I'm curious what size they are. Do they look more like the wolves we have here or more like coyotes? At any rate, they are extremely useful predators, wherever they can still be found.

I totally understand this. I lived in zone 5 fir many years and just couldn't take a long dreary filthy aired winter. I moved.

Thanks, Gean and others. I know that PNW gray. Our climate is similar, though with summer heat, and we get more snow. I think I'd prefer wolves to mountain lions--imagine, house cats sized up--they seem safer for humans, but perhaps I'm wrong. Ingrid, I don't know how big Italian wolves are. I understand your longing for clouds and rain, certainly I would have loved this type of weather during our endless summer last year, but then winter is endless, too. Sometimes I think we don't have any good weather at all, but when conditions are good, and that does happen, it's the sweetest weather in the world. We had five whole hours of mild sunny conditions yesterday before the clouds started moving in. Now the rain is supposed to return, possibly even snow, and temperatures drop down again into the thirties. None of this is good for garden maintenance, but we need the water, and I'm happy enough to push the start of spring back.

Suncoastflowers, I understand now why people retire to Florida (and it's not even that cold here). Still, around the time our spring starts your summer will be beginning, and, at the moment, I wouldn't trade. We have serious air pollution problems, too--yet another reason to plant trees--but as long as it continues to rain and snow the air stays fresh. During the drought last fall the air was terrible, though much worse down in the plain, where DD goes to school, than up here in the hills. Our house is wrapped in green.

Yes, Melissa, I live in a suburban environment, but not long ago it was only a village in the middle of woods. It's now one of the fastest growing communities in Sweden because it's on the railway between Stockholm and Uppsala and very convenient for commuting. But the woods are still there around us, full of wildlife. We don't have any resident wolves, though. There's been only this single wolf passing through two years ago and seen by many. My daughter who lives here was chased by an elk with calves when she was jogging and had to hide behind a three. Only days ago she almost hit a deer with her car. We have three deer spending the night in the garden because we have a remnant of original woodland that probably feels like home to them.