joene's garden » Seasons

Mother Nature is messing with Connecticut gardens

joenesgarden — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 23:55:42 +0000

I know, it's hard not to panic when reading:

Freeze Warning

Valid: April 27 at 3:30PM EDT - April 28 at 8:00AM EDT

* LOCATIONS...PORTIONS OF SOUTHERN CONNECTICUT...THE LOWER HUDSON VALLEY AND NORTHEASTERN NEW JERSEY.
* HAZARDS...HARD FREEZE.
* TEMPERATURES...25 TO 30.
* TIMING...EARLY SATURDAY MORNING.
* IMPACTS...ANY OUTDOOR...SENSITIVE VEGETATION MAY SUFFER DAMAGE IF NOT PROTECTED DUE TO TEMPERATURES DROPPING BELOW FREEZING FOR A PERIOD LATE TONIGHT.

But it is not unusual to have a frost or a freeze in April or into May. We live in Connecticut. Yes, our weather has been warm but, unless Connecticut moved to another region while I was otherwise occupied, it's still a New England state. And April is a fickle month. Some years it's warm, others it's cold. This year Mother Nature cannot make up her mind just what she wants April to be.

It's easy to get caught up in gardening mode when the weather is warm. I have two hibiscus

and a fig I overwintered indoors.

All are just itching to soak up the warmth of the sun on my covered south-facing front porch, but their new, tender leaves are not ready to brave the cool nighttime temperatures we are having, and I'm not willing to move such large plants out during the day and in at night.

It's easy to become intoxicated with the early Spring warmth that has caused many plants and shrubs to blossom nearly three weeks earlier than normal. For the most part April has felt and looked like May. In 2011, my purple lilacs were not in full bloom until May 14. This year they were fully open on April 23.

But April warmth does not mean that tender plants such as tomatoes, peppers, most greenhouse-grown bedding annuals and most houseplants should be outside yet, unless tended by a very experienced gardener with enough time to cover them or move them in and out according to each day's temperatures.

If you have already placed tender plants in the ground cover them with upside down apple baskets, overturned pots, or sheets. If you must, do this before you go to bed. The real cold won't hit until the early morning hours. Just make sure the covering is not touching any leaves. Coverings will transfer cold to the leaves, causing damage. And, by all means, move any potted tender plants or houseplants back inside until nighttime temperatures moderate a bit.

Any freeze that materializes is likely to shorten the life of blooms already open and may alter the quality of blooms still in bud. But, in situations like this we need to accept that we are not in charge.

So cover any newly planted annuals or blooming perennials you simply cannot live without, grab a camera to preserve some digital reminders of your blooms, then pick as many as possible and fill every available horizontal space with fresh cut flowers.

When you have no room for another indoor bouquet, sit back, enjoy, and remember ... it's April.

Garden thoughtfully.

Categories: Focus on Flowers, Gardening, Seasons.
Tags: freeze protection, gardening in Connecticut, lilacs, narcissi.

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Frost Nipped White Lilacs in the Bud

joenesgarden — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 01:11:15 +0000

It's official. There will be no white lilac blooms in joene's garden this spring. I waited and watched and hoped for the best, but it's clear now that the March weather nipped my white lilacs in the bud. This is my first weather-related gardening casualty for 2012.

You remember March. Early month record warmth caused unusually early leaf-break. Then late month frosts and hard freezes stopped by for a few nights. Apparently my white lilacs just weren't up to the cold. This is what the larger of the two looks like now. The uppermost leaves are browned and curled while lower leaves are completely normal.

This is what it looked like last spring.

Seasoned gardeners know there can be many reasons for lack of lilac bloom.

Young or transplanted lilacs may take six or seven years to produce flowers. My white lilacs are not young; they've bloomed consistently for the last 12 years.
Poor pruning will prevent blooms. I prune lilacs as they should be pruned, immediately after they cease blooming. I cut all spent flowers off at the same time so the shrubs put energy into setting new flower buds for the following spring. I've been following this procedure, with much success, for decades.
Over fertilizing with nitrogen will encourage leaf, rather than flower, growth. I only fertilize with compost and worm castings, and infrequently at that. There was no fertilization around the lilacs in the past year
Insect- or disease-stressed shrubs may not bloom. My shrubs have no known disease or insect stress.

The late March freeze is the only cause I can think of for the lack of bloom in these two white lilacs.

I feared this freeze might kill the white lilac buds so I covered the larger of the two shrubs with a sheet - it's the one I see most often from the house. But this was a gardening oops, it did nothing but turn the uppermost leaves – those in contact with the sheet - brown. The next morning the shrub left uncovered looked better than the covered one. Not being one to let a good comparison go to waste, I figured I would watch for any bloom differences between the two shrubs.

But the blooms never materialized on either shrub. Both show similar freeze damage though the one I covered has more brown-tipped leaves.

Yet … my purple lilacs are blooming as they have for years. They will be fully open within the next few days.

So why didn't frost thwart the purple lilacs? I cannot say for sure, but my years of gardening experience leads me to think the difference is due to breeding. The purple lilac (Syringa vulgaris) is the plain old common lilac so prevalent in the northeast. The purple lilac pictured above came from divisions of a shrub at my previous home, and that common lilac was decades old.

My white lilac (unfortunately, I misplaced the plant tag and cannot recall the exact cultivar) was bred to remain more compact than the, usually taller, common white lilacs. Often, cultivars are not as tolerant of harsh conditions as the original species. In other words, breeding for smaller size somehow bred out some hardiness.

Any plant aficionados out there have any other ideas that might have led to the lack of white lilac blooms?

Any other Connecticut or Northeastern gardener making similar observations?

Please, please share.

Garden thoughtfully … and did you happen to notice the difference from 2011 to 2012 in the bloom dates on the photo labels? In 2011, lilacs in my south-central Connecticut gardens bloomed in mid-May. This year purple lilacs will be in full bloom within the next few days, about 3 weeks earlier than last year.

Read more on lilacs for Connecticut gardens from UConn Plant Database.

Categories: Gardening, General, Seasons.
Tags: gardening in Connecticut, lilac bloom times, no white lilac blooms for 2012.

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My Silly Gardening Oops for April 2012

joenesgarden — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 12:48:50 +0000

I should have known better. I've gardened for more than 30 years. I know that early spring emerging plants can handle cold. Still, my mothering instinct beat out my common sense instinct when faced with the idea that my white lilac buds might be harmed by the a hard frost that visited my Connecticut gardens last week. The previous stretch of unusual record warmth caused a growth explosion in lilacs and other spring bloomers. Then, true to typical New England weather, the temperature dropped just as gardeners and gardens were feeling comfortable with the early warmth. I should have known better than to try to protect the larger of my two white lilacs from the freeze. This is my Gardening Oops, GOOPs for short, for April 2012.

All gardeners make mistakes. It doesn't mater how long you have gardened, you'll still make mistakes. That's why I started this Gardening Oops blog meme. On the first of each month I share one of my Gardening Oops, GOOPs for short, and I ask other gardeners to join me. Some are too shy or simply don't want to publically admit their gardening mis-steps, others are brave and self-confident enough to play along with me by acknowledging and sharing their GOOPs.

The GOOPs I'm sharing this month will have me asking, «What were you thinking?» for a long time.

When a hard freeze was forecast for last week I wondered how well the foliage of many of my perennials would fare. I know they are used to growing in cold temps, but after a week of temperatures reaching 70 degrees Fahrenheit caused their unusually rapid growth I wondered if this new growth would be damaged. New England weather can be cruel. The adage that you know you're a New Englander if you've used your air conditioner and furnace in the same day holds true.

When temperatures had fallen to 34 degrees by dusk leading to that cold night, my mothering instincts led me to cover many of my perennials with overturned apple baskets and large pots … not unusual and generally a sound idea when early spring temps drop to the 20's. But I was still worried about the white lilac so, in a last ditch move I secured a sheet over it hoping to protect it. I did this even when a nagging voice in my head said don't.

I should have listened to the nag.

The buds on the lilac I covered now look like this:

Sad, isn't it. This is frost burn. The sheet I placed as protection rested on these buds and captured the cold enough to cause leaf burn. The sheet transferred the damp cold to the lilac buds and held it there. My nagging voice kept trying to tell me this would happen. Obviously I was too deaf to listen. Now, just outside the windows of my house, in an area passed frequently going to and fro, I get to look at the browned tips of lilac leaves. For quite some time this will be a daily reminder of my early spring GOOPs.

At the opposite side of this stretch of garden is another white lilac. One I purposely did not cover. I wanted to later compare how well the covered lilac bloomed as opposed to the one left uncovered.

Here's how the buds of the un-mothered lilac look:

Exactly as they should.

And the perennials I covered? They are fine and look no different, so far, than those left uncovered.

Gardening is a constant learning experience. Sometimes even seasoned gardeners, like me, need to be reminded to listen to their nagging voice and leave things be.

I hope you'll consider playing this GOOPs game. All you need to do is muster up enough strength to admit a Gardening Oops and share it in a comment below. If you share your GOOPs on your own blog, then leave a teaser comment below so readers can head to your blog to read your GOOPs.

Here's hoping you learned from my GOOPs … I sure hope I've learned to listen to my nagging voice.

Garden thoughtfully,

Joene

Categories: Gardening, GOOPs-Gardening Oops, Seasons.
Tags: freeze protection, gardening in Connecticut, gardening oops - GOOPs, lilac buds.

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Take a Virtual Garden Tour

joenesgarden — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 14:17:06 +0000

Connecticut is having another spring-like day, but it's still not warm enough outside to cause abundant blooms to share this February 2012 Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day. For those new to this blog meme, on the 15th of each month Carol at May Dreams Gardens hosts a virtual garden tour. Garden bloggers around the world show off the blooms in their gardens and link their posts to May Dreams Gardens. All you have to do to take the virtual garden tour is follow the links you'll find there.

Connecticut has had more non-winter weather than winter-type cold and snow so far but, after a pre-Halloween storm dropped about ten inches of snow then spring-like temperatures caused bulbs to peak out of the ground in early January, it's hard to decipher what type of weather is now normal.

Outside my house in south-central Connecticut (zone 6a), there are no blooms to share … just color and the promise of blooms to come.

Hair cap moss (Polytrichum) brings a rich green hue in an otherwise brown and gray wood's edge.

Pieris japonica 'Dorothy Wyckoff' shows a maroon-red glow.

Daffodils planted near the house foundation, where the soil tends to warm earlier, are already five inches tall, while narcissi and sedum in more distant beds are just beginning to green up.

The only blooms to show are nestled in the warm house.

Here they soak up the southern sun and brighten the view from my desk.

To see what is blooming elsewhere, visit May Dreams Gardens. Enjoy the tour.

Categories: Bloom Day, Seasons.
Tags: amaryllis, Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, gardening in Connecticut, hair cap moss, narcissi, Pieris.

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Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day: January in Connecticut

joenesgarden — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 16:47:45 +0000

With no blooms in my outdoor gardens eyes are drawn to the subtle colors of a so-far snowless winter. I bundled up for a winter morning photo stroll to see what winter color might reveal itself for this first Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, kindly hosted by Carol at May Dreams Gardens, of 2012.

Temperatures fell below 10 degrees Fahrenheit this morning in south-central Connecticut causing mountain laurel and rhododendron shrubs to curl their leaves in response to the cold.

I think the rhodos jealously eyed my winter garb as I walked by.

Holly, boxwood and pieris of different shapes and sizes add to the green contrast brought by native-growing mountain laurels and gardener-planted rhododendron. Young junipers and spruce will add their blue-gray tones to the landscape as they mature. But now the gardens are dressed in shades of brown highlighted with small touches of whatever green still survives the cold.

Golden shades ornamental grasses pick up early morning sun …

not to be outdone by copper tones of beech.

A newly planted Pieris japonica 'Dorothy Wycoff' hints at the intense purple shades its larger future-self will bring to the winter landscape,

while foxglove and carex dot beds with shades of green.

Winter calls for celebration of even the slightest touch of color. This tiny rose hip could easily be overlooked and that would be a shame.

Inside, protected from the winter cold, an amaryllis leans toward the light as it's companion, a holiday cactus, looks on.

Coleus brighten nighttime views of the window above the kitchen sink.

Houseplants happily soak up whatever morning sun the weather allows.

Garden color isn't always about flowers, or about gardening outdoors. Sometimes we must relish in color, contrast and light during chilly winter walks and from the protected warmth of home.

But flowers do tend to lighten a winter mood so join me as I head over to the Garden Bloggers Bloom Day links posted at May Dreams Gardens. There are always mood-lifting blossoms to enjoy there.

Garden thoughtfully.

Categories: Bloom Day, Seasons.
Tags: Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, gardening in Connecticut, indoor gardening, winter in Connecticut.

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