Early spring weather and perennials

I planted my first perennial garden last year, mostly Day Lillies, irises, tulips and hibiscus. We have been having some extraordinary spring weather here in Maine -- periods in the 80s in March! Problem is, the perennials woke up too early. Then we had some very cold nights in the upper teens. Now it's back to 70s and 80s and it's been extremely dry. Are these wild swings bad for such perennials? So far, the Lily's seem OK, they're popping up fine, but the hibiscus doesn't seem to be waking up. Anything I should worry about? Anything I should do?

Hi Ajhall. There are a lot of factors that trigger perennials to start growing, and one of them is ground temperature. Others include chill factor and length of day.

I am in a considerably warmer climate than you, and have been consistently warmer for a while now. My spring bloomers are up and some already gone and daylilies are blooming, but my tropicals are just now beginning to "wake up". The question would be what hibiscus species you have..are they tropicals or hardies? tropicals probably wouldn't survive your winters and hardies seem to "know" when it is time to sprout out.

Hardy hibiscus are notoriously slow to get going in the spring--I've seen people say they sometimes don't come up until June in colder areas so I definitely wouldn't worry about them in April. The other plants should also be fine in the long run--sometimes things will pop up too early and then tender new growth will get zapped by frost, but that doesn't generally kill the plant and they should come back. If it's been really dry though make sure you're watering your plants--even if you wouldn't normally have to water this time of year, temps that warm plus no rain means things could get too dry if you don't help them out.

Plants take their lead from nature usually, like cold springs, the bulbs stay undercover longer and the flowers can be maybe a week or 2 later than the year before, same with the warmer temps, the plants get the message it's summer so begin to put on lots of growth, next thing they know, the cold weather nips their tops so they look miserable for a few days or a week but then most pick up again, just keep an eye on the plants in such fluctuating temps and make sure they have water in the hot days and stop watering when it;s cooler. here in UK I sometimes have to throw that White fleece over the beds for protection(looks like tissue paper but stronger) remove in day time if warmer, you can water through this flees and it wont stop the light reaching the plants.

you can wrap it around shrubs too if required, here in UK where I am, this helps prevent some shrubs getting wind burnt as I live by the sea the salt also burns the tender foliage.
Try not to panic but keep an eye on the tender new shoots above ground for frost damage, or add a mulch around the plants for some protection till the weather settles if ever it does, everyone is relaying the strange weather changes for this time of year and I mean everywhere.
Good luck. WeeNel.

I'm in zone 5 and my hibiscus are just breaking ground but they are starting early this year like everything else here. As a rule they usually show up after Mothers Day.
Yours still have plenty of time to wake up. I'm glad mine didn't wake up last week when we had freezing temps and frost for 3 days straight.

I have anemones ready to bloom (usually bloom the end of May), hostas are mostly up, lilacs blooming. Even my trumpet vine has leaves. They usually look totally dead until June. Weird year, but I am so enjoying it! Somehow frost hasn't bothered much!

Thanks everyone for your excellent input. I'd just about determined to dig up the hibiscus when the posts here convinced me to sloooowww down. I'll give it another month or so. Everything else is doing fantastic. The Dead Nettle is thriving, as is the Astilibe. All the Daylilies are happily growing. The irises are slowly coming around. The climbing rose in stretching it's canes quite nicely, reaching for the sky. The tulips and Daffodils are blooming, and the lilacs are easily 3 weeks ahead of where they should typically be. We had an extremely dry spring, and it seemed obvious that watering was needed, so I gave everything a drink every few days. Then today, we got 4" of rain in one fell swoop -- go figure.

But again, thanks for all of your excellent input. It was very helpful and reassuring.

Let nature do it's thing, it knows what it's doing!