It is cold today….for this Spring, that is…..windy and 40 degrees F. ……a normal Spring after a normal Winter, but not for a winter without a January and February, that is this past season of little precipitation and no traditional Minnesota wind and cold. Last year we wouldn’t have noticed.
Checking out our landscape grounds, I noticed last Saturday, March 24, 2012, that the following are now in bloom performance: Merrill Magnolia, Leonard Messell Magnolia, Weekend Forsythia, Pachysandra, and Scilla, Pushkinia, Snowdrips, Crocus and Helleborus come to mind. Juddii Viburnum and Toka Plum are about a week of 60 degree temperature away. The Northern Redbud will soon follow.
But, then again it may cool and snow and “slow” the garden down next week or two.
I particularly like Scilla, or Siberian Squill, its other name. It’s a minor “Dutch” bulb. There isn’t a prettier, brighter pure blue in Nature and one never has to worry about rabbits eating it or the weather being too cold. It is wonderfully ‘weedy’ without anyone really noticing it spreading until it has spread. “Where did these come from?” is the usual question. “I never planted them here!”
About a month after bloom, Siberian Squill will lose its foliage until next winter’s thaw. If you’re wondering how it can travel from the front garden to the East, West, and back garden, well most likely the converyor belt is YOU. If you rake around Scilla world, transplant a valued perennial or dump what you never liked by digging it up and throwing it into the back gardened grounds or compost pile somewhere and the dumping isn’t buried too deeply, you might have a hundred or so “seeds” of future Scilla plants carried along with your primping up….. never, never noticed.
Never forget that a weed in the landscape garden is a plant “out of place”.
It is helpful to develop your plant’s flowering calendar. You can do this by crossing the date along one axis of the chart with the name of the flowering plant, let us say, Juddii Viburnum, a deciduous shrub that is imperative to own for the Twin City landscape gardeners south of St. Cloud.
Crosslined to the dates of the month, insert the name of the plant, and the following code by number: 1…..no bud swelling; 2…… noticeable bud swelling to partial floral opening; 3…….in full bloom (that is, the plant showing between 25% of full bloom to peak bloom and until only 25% of bloom remains; 4…….reducing bloom, sparse, spotty; 5……..No blooms remain.
I have many years of records (lying around somewhere in this house) and look forward to the day when I can find them to make comparisons, especially the dramatic ones, such as with this year.
During the two summers following the eruption of Mount Pinatuba in the Phillippines in 1991, I think it was, we had no summer, only an extended spring all summer long. Azaleas were in bloom from late May to the first of July.
Make note of where tyour Juddii Viburnum might be…..front grounds versus back grounds….for reference purposes. Most of the grounds behind the house where I live are under some degree of shade. You will note about four or five days difference between peak bloom of woody plants in the two areas because of the shade.
Most Easters occur in April. Until 40 years ago most Easter Sunday landscapes in our Twin Cities were covered with ice and snow. The sun might have been shining, but the temperature was a high of 40 degrees for the day. There is no doubt that our horticultural zone has warmed up a bit over the past 60 years, from 4.0 to 4.7 where I live in 40 years…..a normal swing of the Earth’s northern hemisphere pendulum of thermometer readings during the same period.
I want a growing season temperature just a month earlier and six weeks shorter of a slightly warmer winter…one in which we can grow the lace-leafed Japanese Maples in the outdoor garden…..and you folks in Bemidji can grow Juddii Viburnum which this year might begin its bloom before your first of April.
It is highly unlikely our area will be hit with severe cold yet this Spring. We are running about SEVEN WEEKS AHEAD OF SCHEDULE regarding deciduous tree leafing. Treat the season as if it were any other. Normally the average frost free day is May 10. I’d guess that it might be earlier by a week this year. I would be very surprised if we get any day this spring where the high temperature will be below freezing. Do whatever needs to be done, don’t wait, but start earlier.
For the past three decades, maybe longer, the “lace-leaf” season, that is the five or six day period when the leaf buds elms, maples, honeylocusts, cottonwoods, oaks, and birch and others begin to green up, but before reaching full size. It is that very period in which the evergreen conifers no longer dictate the landscape plant forms. During this five day period they begin to lose their forms and blend into the sweep of green which in landscape garden art terms is no longer Spring, but Summer in its look.
This transformation of six months of the winter landscape……a time equal to all other Minnesota landscape seasons combined, remember, happens in about five days give or take one or two. In truth visually, in the Twin Cities, the skyward spring landscape turns from winter into summer in usually less than a week.
Have you ever noticed that annual phenomenon of the quick change of landscape looks in our Northland? If not, get outdoors and explore…. become acquainted with the landscape garden world around you. It needs a lot, a helluva lot of improvement. There are countless more plant materials available in today’s market than only twenty years ago….trees, understory trees, tree- shrubs, conifer shrubs, shrubby trees, perennials tall, perennials small, and ground covers too.
Call us at Masterpiece Landscaping, Ltd., 952 933 5777 when you need assistance. We offer visits and lectures at low cost for groups.
Look over our website….call if you have landscape questions.