At Botanical Garden, dozens of trees lost

By Thursday afternoon, the trees at Norfolk Botanical Garden were already in trouble.

Pools of standing water had formed, and the ground was soaked through. The softened soil left the roots of large trees with nothing to grab onto.

By Thursday night, when the gusts really started, it was all over.

"Can you imagine the sound this would have made?" said Donna Krabill, the garden's director of education and communications, as she picked

her way around a fallen oak tree that blocked the path around Mirror Lake.

The tree roots formed a circle more than 6 feet in diameter. They'd been ripped out of the ground when the tree fell, leaving the air smelling like dirt and wet wood.

The garden lost about 40 large trees, along with various small trees and shrubs, Krabill said. Although the immediate damage from winds was not as bad as it was for Hurricane Isabel - then, nearly 400 trees were lost - in some places, the flooding from this storm was worse.

Some prize specimens, such as the garden's nationally recognized Camellias, survived the wind only to be left in standing water - not good for plants that like drier soil, she said. There's really nothing you can do for them, she said: "You pray."

Workers have been cleaning up since Friday, clearing off fallen leaves and debris that left pathways through the garden nearly invisible.

The garden has been closed since Thursday, and Krabill said most of it probably would be open today. Some areas, though, were still roped off Sunday.

"It's nature's way of pruning," Krabill said. "We'd done a lot of pruning ourselves, but there was still more pruning to be done."