Scanner art by Craig Cramer, gardening & more
What it’s doing outside, and in the bigger picture musings about climate.
Nothing I like better than waking up halfway through April to this:
Yes, I did the spring deer fence repair around the garden a couple weeks ago. Heavy wet snow like this — 6 inches overnight, maybe another 8 or more today — dragged it down, no sweat. The alders are bent to the ground and even the lizard was collecting snow. Might have more from after work later.
This is just weird.
They’re only calling for heavy wet snow here in central New York with potentially significant accumulations (depends on the track and how cold it gets). Looks like Long Island and the coast won’t get snow but are in for a pounding.
For what it’s worth, it’s a balmy 40 F tonight and the peepers are singing again.
Last Friday, it got down into the lower 20s (not unusual this time of the year). I noticed a very interesting frost on the patch of Iris reticulata I’ve been photographing a lot lately.
On closer inspection (click on the image for an even closer look), I noticed that the frost crystals were — I don’t know — columnar in shape? Any folks into crystals out there?
What I really love about all these early flowers is how easily they shake off a frost that in fall turns so many plants to mush.
The first day of spring dawned at 4 F. Â But since then, it’s been in the 50s and 60s and most of the snow has retreated again — except for the drifts in the veggie garden and some of the piles along the driveway and in the ditches. There’s a lot more to see than there was two weeks ago when the snow retreated the first time.
Crocuses are peaking where the soil is warmest. (Click on images for larger view.)
What else is flowering? Clockwise, an orange crocus, an iris (cristata?), the now trite clump of snowdrops (still my favorite spring ephemeral), and a nice spotted hellebore flower.
I forgot to knock wood on that last post.
We picked up 8 or 10 inches late Friday and Saturday. It continued snowing lightly during the rock garden society activities. (I’ll blog about the tufa workshop later.)
Then we picked up another 8 or 10 last night. Official snowfall figures were lower. But the storms often drop a more as they make their way up our little valley.
It wasn’t exactly the Blizzard of ’93 that dropped more than 40 inches of snow in these parts in mid-March of that year. (I remember actually shoveling off my raised beds after the storm so I could get some lettuce planted.)
It’s supposed to hit 60 by the end of the week. But I’m hoping it doesn’t get too warm as my son is coming up from Florida for some late winter snowboarding.
