Ushi No Tane Forum

I am in my first year in this game but am not new to Harvest Moon altogether.

Throughout the first year in game, I've been gathering and planting all the varieties of tree saplings as I could. Late autumn, a giant storm swept through and DESTROYED some of the trees that I had planted and left nothing but a stump! :c

I know that in a previous game, the shield maiden/spear maiden protected your crops against these kinds of things happening in storms.

So I guess my questions are:

1) How do I prevent trees and crops from being destroyed in the storm, or would my best bet be to wait till the cellar unlocks to have an underground orchard of sorts?
2) Is there an ideal area to plant trees on the farm? (East farm, West farm, etc )
3) Are there any crop circles that could prevent crop and tree damage from storms?

I searched the wiki for the last one but couldn't find anything. (I could be blind though. c: )

Thanks in advance!! :D

1) Choose a plant stat and use that particular stat fertiliser everyday. Basically, storms damage trees by reducing all stats by a certain amount (I think 6%?) and once all stats are zero, it dies. If you can just keep one stat above zero at all times, it'll be fine. But it's highly recommended you replant your trees in the cellar anyway, then they'll be totally safe.
2) No
3) There's some that increase a particular plant stat and you can use them but the effect is pretty much what I described above.

It's lowered 4% in every category per storm.