Re: Spring?
gardenchat@hort.net
  • Subject: Re: Spring?
  • From: A*@aol.com
  • Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:26:10 EDT
Whatever happened to spring?  All last week was overcast, damp, chilly,
and definitely not pleasant.  Even had a light frost one night.  And now
today it's 85 degrees and very humid.  Again, not pleasant.  It's still
overcast and gloomy - just hot and sticky and the shad flies are out
in force.  New growth on my Hellebores has wilted badly.
 
At least everything is blooming.  Things weren't great for our little
Horticulture show last week, but we made a decent showing with
77 entries - about 2/3 of the 99 we had on the same date in a previous
year.  But now, a week later, there would be twice as much.  All four
different varieties of Epimedium have shown blooms - I could only find
one stem of the common yellow one a week ago.  
 
I was pleased to see that the dogwood was setting buds last fall.  Last
spring's showing was the poorest I can remember.  However, I am 
puzzled to see that now that they are opening, about a third of them
don't seem to be developing like the others.  I don't know what that
means.
 
One sure sign of spring has appeared in the past week - the goldfinches
have resumed their brilliant yellow plumage.  They are here all winter, but
in drab winter coats.  It's always great to see them emerge in their bright
yellow - they go right along with the Forsythia.  
 
Many things in the flower beds are looking better than I had feared.  Some
things like my Artemisia 'Powis Castle' and Rue (Ruta graveolens) are not
reliably hardy here, but seem to have come through just fine.  I think it 
was
that they had such a heavy and complete snow cover through the worst of
the winter that they were protected from all the extremes.
 
Here's hoping everyone had a blessed Easter season, or whatever.
 
APL

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