April weather whiplash

Then this happened....That's my garden, looking across the patio, photo taken at 4:04 am Monday morning. There had been talk of snow, but snow talk doesn't always mean snow will materialize, and it's mid-April for goodness sake. It doesn't snow in April in Portland. Everyone knows that. Ha.

I woke up about 3:30 and glanced out the window. I couldn't see much—just that snow had fallen and it was heavy and wet. The kind of snow that breaks plants. I should do something. But it was 3:30 in the morning! Dark! Cold! Wet! My bed was warm and dry. Fifteen minutes later I was headed out to do damage control.

Thoughts of the newly emerged podophyllum are what finally got me up and out. These plants grow near the steps to the patio and I enjoy passing by them all summer. The idea of those soft, fleshy stems snapping and loosing their big dramatic leaves, I couldn't risk it. Here's how they looked after I gently teased off the snow.
Then I shook snow off the schefflera, the metapanax, my cutleaf-horse chestnut and the orange blooming edgeworthia. Next the fatsia, daphniphyllum and bamboo. Then I noticed the potted Pseudopanax ferox was bent under the snow weight and went after it too. 
Then I moved to the front garden and rescued the arctostaphylos, pineapple guava, and the daphne with the same treatment. So many plants! And my fingers were numb, I stopped taking photos and just worked. It was nearing 5am when I crawled back into bed for a couple of hours.

Around 8:30 I made another pass, carefully shaking and by noon it had warmed and the snow was melting—time to go survey the garden:

One segment (with a fat bud) broke off my peony. I think with time the rest of the stems will be upright, if not I'll get out the twine.

You've heard of fern tables? How about an agave snow table?
What a rude exit from greenhouse life! One day you're living a pampered dry life, the next your outdoors and covered with snow. Poor thing.
Ditto for these spikes. They spent winter under one of the plastic-covered bamboo tunnels and missed out on our other brief snow events.
More podophyllum, P. peltatum. Some upright, some with their nose stuck to the ground. What really worries me here are the new fronds on the Adiantum venustum (aka Himalayan maidenhair), those thin black stems all bent about, hopefully they'll rebound.
The Veratrum californicum were completely buried earlier, but I left them be, because I didn't want to risk stepping on the podophyllum or fern fronds. Looks like they'll be upright again soon (fingers crossed).
Just two days earlier the walls (and inner roof) were still up and this structure was acting as a greenhouse. I'm pretty sure I remarked to Andrew that this was one of our earliest "take downs" as we were doing the work on Saturday afternoon. What strange timing. The first Oregon April snowfall since record keeping started, coincided with our de-winterizing.
Leaning a little, but the Echium wildpretti will live on to bloom in the coming weeks.
And the podophyllum (L-R: 'Red Panda' and pleianthum) look like they will stand straight again!
The Arisaema ringens remained upright through the entire event.
You can do it!
The little Syneilesis aconitifolia (shredded umbrella plant) I'm not so sure about.
Weak drama queen that she is, the edgeworthia was flat on the ground earlier. I feared there would be breaks, but thankfully there are none!
More fern damage, those little stems are so fragile.
In another example of unfortunate timing, I bought some of Langley Fine Garden's annuals at Portland Nursery last week and planted them in a stock tank. While there was snow it wasn't horribly cold—our low was 33. Fingers crossed for them...
This little Cobaea scandens (cup-and-saucer vine) wasn't even planted... just sitting in it's 4" pot buried under the snow. Look how good it looks!
If anything the snow-load improved the shape of Arctostaphylos 'Monica'. I'd wanted those thin legs to be less upright.
Arctostaphylos densiflora ‘Harmony’ has attained a sort of flat pancake shape, the orange arc showing the typical foliage line. It's still working on a rebound.
Unfortunately the Pittosporum divaricatum has taken a sideways tumble. There's no sign of the roots pulling out of the ground, thankfully.
But there is a little breakage inside the congested tangle of branches.
And little white blooms too!
Obligatory agave in the melting snow shot... (Agave ovatifolia)
Sadly our neighbors to the north had a bit more damage than we did. Several branches fell from their front garden tree—which oddly I just realized I have no idea about ID on.
The solid green one, a Ceanothus 'Victoria' I believe, looks like it's roots are a little disturbed.
During my pre-dawn trip outside, the rest of the neighborhood was still sleeping and the snow had created that hush that only snow can. However, every few minutes I'd hear a branch snapping somewhere, occasionally a sort of thump as well. It looks like this big beautiful oak in the park at the end of our street was the source of some of that.
Sadly it's a little smaller now. I hope the tree can be saved and isn't removed all together.
Other trees in the park had a broken branch or two, none as bad as the first one though.
There were lots of branches down in yards and hellstrips, plus a few branches still blocking roadways.
Crabapple blooms? Pretty...
Sadly there will be less of them now.
I don't remember those conifers having quite that lean to them prior to this snow. Maybe they did and I'm just imagining?
They've definitely lost some branches.
Back home and I remembered to check on my Mahonia x media 'Charity' which is known to lean into the neighbor's driveway when it catches snow or ice. I cleaned it off earlier but it didn't raise much. Looking out the window I can see it's a little better. I suppose I should make sure the roots are still in the ground and nothing is broken.
I also thought to check on the Stachyurus salicifolius, which was draped over the stock tank pond and agaves much lower than it usually is.
This break is from a previous ice storm, maybe two years ago? I wrapped it but the two pieces didn't want to mend so I'd decided to just let them heal as is. Thankfully this event didn't seem to stress the old break or make new ones.
And the blooms are carrying on as though nothing ever happened..