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How can you save storm damaged seedlings?

Posted on May 24th, 2007 – 1:24 PM
By Jaime Chismar

From GG reader Laura:
help! my garden was badly damaged in yesterday’s hail storm! is there any hope for the flattened seedlings?

I sent Laura some post-storm sympathy. She sent me her list of casualties and a few photos:

5_23_07025.jpg

5_23_07026.jpg

“i had sugar snap peas, carrots, onions, radishes, and lettuce. the peas were maybe 3-4 inches tall, everything else was only sprouted an inch or two and now is wiped flat. i also had transplanted my tomatoes because the temps were being so nice. they seem to have survived with broken branches. my day lilies also took a bad beating from the hail.”

Hail, high winds, and heavy rains are disasterous for us gardeners. Is there anything Laura can do? Will these damaged plants survive?

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 24th, 2007 at 1:24 pm and is filed under Weather woes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

4 Responses to "How can you save storm damaged seedlings?"

Sue says:

May 24th, 2007 at 1:11 pm

My Ferns and Hosta’s were shredded in the storm yesterday. Is there enough season for them to be “Reborn”?

Robyn Dochterman says:

May 24th, 2007 at 1:50 pm

Ouch! That’s some impressive hail, Laura. I guess the good news is that is you probably have time to replant your tender sprouts. I think your day lilies, if they were established, will likely be fine. Same for Sue’s ferns and hostas. If the roots are established and intact, I’d bet they’d recover.

Margaret says:

May 24th, 2007 at 2:38 pm

Usually if there is at least one leaf still attatched to the step, even if it is messed up, the plant will survive to make more leaves. If there is just a naked stem, then probably not. If the stem is actually broken in the middle, probably not. If it’s just bent, you can try to splint it carefully and depending on how much food is cut off, it can come back. With Tomato plants you can always mound up the soil higher around the stem if you’ve got a leggy plant. Roots will be encouraged to grow and you’ll have a sturdier plant in the end.

One thing I noticed about your pictures is that if you didn’t notice before you’ve got a really nice picture of what the drainage in your garden looks like.

laura says:

May 25th, 2007 at 3:39 pm

i’m happy to say nearly half of the flattened seedlings started to stand up in todays sunshine! i’m still not sure on the peas, but i had planted a second round that should be sprouting soon, so i dont think all hope is lost.

the day lilies, half were established, half were transplanted from a big clusterflump that i separated out. i cleared away the debris from the storm and the leaves are badly shredded, especially on the transplants. the main stalks on all are still standing, but some dont have any leaves left.

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