Re: ARE WE THERE?
> "helene.pizzi" wrote:
> Plants are acting odd here in Rome this winter, and Italy has suffered
> (to say the least) from top to toe with strange violent attacks from
> Mother Nature. Rome has had scirocco winds and warm weeks so far this
> winter. We read that odd weather patterns are occuring all over the
> world this year.
The weather patterns are certainly bizarre here in south Texas also. We
had record breaking heat and drought all summer with the highest
temperatures in mid September. (110) October brought record low high
temps (lowest that the upper temp got in the afternoon, barely above
freezing). November was record rainfalls and the first freeze before
Thanksgiving. December was record ice storms, longest cold spells below
freezing, crazy weather. January was in the 70's until today, mid 50's
and drizzle.
I haven't a clue as to what is going on except I think the El Nino
stopped and the world is snapping back like a rubber band.
> What puzzles me are the unusual spurts of bloom...
Here too!! My Redbud tree bloomed in October while still in full leaf.
Still blooming right through the 2" of ice and still to this day has
flowers and leaves!! This guy is supposed to bloom in spring, then leaf
out. My wild Phlox are blooming now and of all things the Mesquite
trees are leafing out, some in full swing!! (For those not familiar
with Mesquite tree habits, they are native here in Texas and usually are
the last to leaf out regardless of the weather. They *know* when spring
has sprung and my 70 year old father has only seen them fooled once in
his life. We use the Mesquites to tell us when it's safe to plant
tender plants.)
> - 'Alberic Barbier' has a few lovely roses in full bloom (NEVER SEEN
> HERE IN JANUARY)...
My roses usually look better in winter here than in summer. Our
season's are reversed to those up north, our summers equal their winters
since we loose leaves in the heat and drought, have new growth all
winter and usually bloom like mad.
> - A potted fuschia, only one out of 4 pots on a north facing terrace,
> was in generous bloom (NEVER SEEN HERE IN JANUARY)...
My fuschia in the ground has sprung up and is growing. ?? Datura are up
and blooming. ??
> - Every cheerful hot red pepper plant (seeds from Bangalore, India)
> that had been sharing space with a row of potted geraniums was still
> in full swing producing more peppers and I harvested a little
> basketfull of the bright red ripe ones yesterday (NEVER SEEN HERE IN
> JANUARY)...
I harvested Bell Peppers yesterday, small, plant nipped by frost, but
still green and producing. This is the third season for the same plant,
never died. What's up with that?
> - The white paper narcissis bloomed in November this winter, instead
> of January and a blue flag iris flowered too, months before it should
> have,
All my iris varieties are up and running looking like they will bloom
any minute. Not a bulb peeking out yet (??) but my Clivia never went
dormant.
> - For the 3rd year running we have had completely albino Acanthus
> mollis seedlings double-dotting the ground with pure white leaves (no
> stripes or varigated leaflets, but candid white ones) until they run
> out of nourishment.
I have wild morning glories blooming. Acanthus mollis still green and
happy.
> -Hydrengias have made odd fairy-godmother-like wands with tightly
> clustered pompoms of flowers on the tips of winter-bare canes (NEVER
> SEEN HERE IN JANUARY)...
Mine are still green!! Took 25 degrees several nights in a row and two
weeks of freezing nights, ice, and miserable days. One even bloomed at
the base of the plant in December!! ????
> Have our natural cycles been altered? Are we really feeling the
> effects of the increase of carbon dioxide, methane and other gasses
> in our polluted atmosphere? What are the
> chlorofluorocarbons continuing to do to our earth's ozone layers?
If we have global warming it hasn't happened in Texas yet, way colder
than normal.
> Acidic rain is unavoidable. Europe, including areas of the French and
> Italian Alps, is still is poisioned in places with nuclear fallout
> from the Cernobyl accident, and will be so for hundreds of years.
Acid rain kills plants doesn't it, not make them grow and bloom out of
season I don't think. Who the heck knows? I am sick about Chernobyl's
damage. :-(
> Are our gardens showing strange behavior and odd changes because of
> our 'progress'?
This year I think it is Mother Nature's progress. Some of my plants
decided to adapt to the insanity and keep on truckin. Others decided to
commit suicide and freeze before the temps actually were below
freezing. Frozen lantana at 40 degrees F? Passion vines and senicio
confusus blooming in December? How about my cabbage and broccoli living
over the *summer* and doing great now? I still have some of last years
petunia's for petesake. Maybe because I wanted them to burn up? LOL
> Have we arrived at a point of no return? Is Global Warming changing
> our weather patterns? We certainly have gotten ourselves into a mess
> in the past 50 years, and looking at our small Mediterranean garden
> with the odd growth this winter, I wonder ... are we there????
We have a saying here in Texas; if you don't like the weather, wait 10
minutes, it'll change. Now it's more like 30 seconds. LOL We started a
few years ago with three years of record rainfall, each year surpassing
the year before. Then it quit, record droughts, record heat, now record
cold and record rain. If spring as come in January, now record spring,
good grief.
Other strange things happening here: Gold finches already colored out
in spring plumage, other birds building nests. Leaf cutter ants
stripped my plants in August, normally occurs in October. (I should
have listened to them.) Found new born Copperhead snakes in December
AFTER the freezes.
Butterfly's here now that are not natural to our area usually found way
up north. Fat Monarch butterfly babies on dead milkweed. (had to keep
moving them from plant to plant to find enough food, buy parsley, bring
inside at night to keep them warm. OK, I'm an idiot.)
Still have Elephant ears standing next to frozen banana trees. My
Hackberry trees went dormant in December yet my Golden Rain still has
leaves. ??? Saw geese flying in formation today even tho it is still
snow and ice up north. (If my wild Black Bellied Whistling Tree Ducks
and Hummingbirds arrive early I will know spring as sprung.) Daylillies
are up and fixing to bloom.
Two years in a row we hit 100+ degrees in MAY instead of August and it
lasted until October. It rained for 7 weeks straight in May and June
then quit until November. We never get rain and usually pray for a
hurricane. The plants got spoiled and cooked to death at the end of
June. Sanseveria in the shade turned into cooked spinach. My oak trees
are having heart attacks and dropping dead. (Black Jack and Post)
The Mesquite's scare me the most tho, all hopes of normalcy is now gone.
Even if we do have global warming and have poisioned our planet, we now
must do what our and our vegetation's ancestors have done for millions
of years, adapt, evolve, mutate. We won't see a reversal in our life
times, unfortunately.
Anybody else as confused as we are?
Linda
Central Texas
