Mild Winter we're having.......

Wow, it sounds like you all have moved to the banana belt! It's been relatively mild here since about the 2nd week of December, but not as mild as places farther North and East have been compared to their normals. The only kind of odd thing I've noticed in my area is that my 'Texas Scarlet' Japanese Quince started leafing out the day after Christmas(mine are quite odd and usually begin to leaf out from late January to late February in most years) and my 'Knock Out' shrub Rose has remained more or less evergreen. My Witch Hazel have only opened a couple of flowers part way. I'll have to see how well they deal with this frigid icy weather we are having now. The Quince bushes have been leafed out and had no injury with temps in the low single digits before and I hope they deal with the constant temps around 20F(-6.7C) we've had since Friday. Even though it happens just about every year here, I still hate when it goes from 61F(16.1C) to 16F(-8.9C) in 24 hours!

This message was edited Jan 14, 2007 2:55 AM

'Texas Scarlet' Japanese Quince leafing out on Monday Dec. 26, 2006

'Knock Out' shrub Rose on Thursday Jan. 11, 2007

Welcome back winter!

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28 Cloudy and raw with brisk northeast winds. Occasional light snow with minor accumulations. Some sleet or freezing rain mainly south of the city. Snow becomes heavier after dark with several inches possible by morning. Lows in the middle/upper 20s.

Monday


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-3 Snow diminishes to flurries by afternoon. Total accumulations 4-9”. Strong N winds. Falling afternoon temps. Very cold overnight.

Tuesday


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-4 A frigid day despite partly sunny skies. Clear and bitterly cold overnight with subzero lows again inland.

Bees on my Mahonia flowers ( Jan. 14th!)

Daffs. in full bloom

Kevin:

I'll be headed your way in the morning with that load of Ilex opaca I've long promised you.

Here's some spring cheer to tide you over.

That Viburnum × bodnantense? That's flowering here, too

Still staying mild and wet here too, 9° today, 10° forecast tomorrow

Resin

Yes, that's 'Dawn' blooming its fool head off.

In zip 43528 (zone 5) the National Weather Service has just put out the strangest forecast ever. In short is says "We don't know what is going to happen for the next 24 hours so just stick your head out the window from time to time and get the current weather conditions yourself ". Sheesh!

This message was edited Jan 14, 2007 7:12 PM

They're trying honesty, for once. It's kind of unnerving, isn't it.

Scott

I noticed my pear tree is starting to bloom, guess that ruins the fruit for this year. I also saw a redbud and a red maple flowering today.

I wonder how our Missouri and Western Illinois friends are doing? Hope the ice storm didn't cause any harm to anyone here (and not here).

Scott

I have a son in Tulsa OK. Now if you want to have pity on some people it would be the poor citizens of OK. Know that phrase, "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds" ? Weeell it seems that 3/4 in. of ice will stay the couriers. Trees breaking everywhere. Conifers bowed to the ground. ER's busy with slip and falls. Son in Air Force and works on the local guard base. Everything grounded. He is one of the lucky ones that still has power. He was going to break the ice off the conifers. I suggested that he be careful not to break the limbs instead. That is a lot of ice. It is 24 degrees in Tulsa today and the cold is spreading eastward. We are next.

yes ...it is supposed to be 17 degrees here by Thursday ... Bye Bye Blossoms

Unusually cold in CA, FREEZING, night after night after night!!!
Days in the 40ies!
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

Christie

No mail today for Martin Luther King day

claypa, are you telling me I shouldn't post anything because of Martin Luther King day?

No, snapple45 said no mail was delivered in Tulsa because of the weather

WOW!!! Is that normal weather for your part of the land?

I wasn't referring to no mail due to MLK day. Either Friday or Saturday there was no mail delivered in some parts of Tulsa. My son said he did see one mail carrier on a walk route that tried to throw the mail about fifteen feet onto a porch rather than negotiate the sidewalk and steps! He missed. My son reported that to his credit he was attempting to retrieve it as my son went on to work. They have had one heck of a time out there.

If I were the mail man I would buy a pair of old shoes at salvation army and pound in some tacks an have me a pair of ice shoes. Here in Montana we often don't get the mail. They never said in that long "Come rain......", Come repeated Holiday of any sort. That is why they need to deliver on rainy sleet etc days, there would be too much mail in the trucks due to the holidays they didn't deliver. LOL

if they got rid of junk mail, they could deliver all our real mail once a week

We got another 3/4"(19mm) of sleet, about another 1/10"(2.5mm) of freezing rain and a trace of snow, so now we have about a total 1 3/4"(45mm) of sleet, 3/10"(7.6mm) of ice and a trace of snow. This entire mass has frozen solid to the consistency of concrete. The only good thing is that the freezing rain(ice) came down in a couple of different episodes and we already had almost 1/2"(12.7mm) of sleet on the ground, so things are icy solid, but the ice is rough textured enough to walk on without much problem. Also, no power outages because we missed out on the real ice by about 50 miles(80km). Since it fell from 61°F(16.1°F) on Thursday to 16°F(-8.9°C) on Friday we have only been back up to about 30°F(-1.1°C) since and only 7°F(-13.9°C) now! It's supposed to get down to about 0°F(-17.8°C) tonight, and not above freezing until Wednesday. We'll see how dormant all the plants really were come spring I suppose.

Speaking of the "real" ice storm, a friend who lives down near McAlester, OK said he thinks they got about 4"(102mm) of ice and haven't had power at his house for 3 days now!

kman--was talking to a friend near Kearney NE last night--he is going on 16 days without power, since a Dec. 30 ice storm. They are talking perhaps another 2 weeks till they get fixed up. The numbers he quoted were amazing--something like 2900 miles of power lines down, 2,000 poles snapped, and 40 or so of the giant metal transmission line towers crumpled in two. Yikes.

That is horrible

I hope he doesn't have a fish tank. Hard to keep one going without power. I worry more about my fish tank than I do anything else. I can always drive to a hotel, but fish arn't very portable. My brother lost power three times in one winter and completely got out of keeping salt water fish as a result. Sold everything and never tried again. Remember the mismanaged power company that took out the electricity for a chunk of the eastern seaboard, midwest and Canada? That's us. You trip over an extension cord here and the power goes out in the whole neighborhood.

Yeah, this weather is horrible. I think these mild winters are harder on our plants than a good cold winter. This up and down with the temps is terrible for the plants.
Mike

As you can see Vermont trees are happy to be getting some winter weather. Snowing again and -15 F in the forecast for tonight.

I hope that kid gets to come inside before nightfall! I doubt he's -15F hardy.

Scott

I failed to mention that our electricity supplier is also the one that came within 1/16 of an inch of eroded steel from a nuclear melt down. Planting for future generations here requires having great faith that there will BE future generations.

My brother in Lincoln sent me this link to pictures of the Nebraska storm damage. Pretty amazing stuff.

http://www.extremeinstability.com/06-12-31.htm

As bad as it is, there are some pretty amazing photos on that link!

I feel for all of you having to suffer like that.
Would you please accept my humble appology for crying about the loss of my dear Brugmansias, I know I have to feel grateful I can keep my house warm...

Mrs colla - What a beautiful yard and garden you have!

Peg--great link--thanks.

My friend measure 2 1/4" of ice coating everything. A power company just can't plan for that kind of weight. It's an area too where a mile of power line might service only one house. Those prairie folks are tough.....a wood stove, a generator, and its back to business as usual.

Kevin:

Do we need to be praying real hard for the viburnums?

Nope--all is well there. These aren't Oaks we're talking about! Only a couple broken shrubs out of hundreds--all the rest sprang back with typical Viburnum Vigor.

I bet uncertified tree trimmers will be out in a frenzy talking people into "topping" their trees.

Is it typical for Q.michauxii to hang on to it's youngest leaves this late? Here it is almost February and it still has fall color.