I think that the January arctic air outflow did more damage than any previous outflow since I've lived in Burnaby, BC (almost 50 years). This was the first time that I can remember both Brussels sprouts and leeks being severely damaged during winter. Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme were all killed completely. And today I noticed that our Hydrangea macrophylla has lost all of its terminal buds, which would have produced this year's flowers. I don't recall that this has ever happened before. Have any other members of this forum noticed the same thing? Since only the terminal buds were killed, will some of the lower buds produce flowers? I recall that our Hydrangea usually produces a few late blossoms, but I never checked to see if these came from terminal buds or not.
I lived in Burnaby all my life until relocating to Vancouver Island. I will never forget the terrible freeze when I was a young schoolgirl on November 11, 1955. It wasn't until the next spring that my family realized the extent of the damage. "The temperature dropped from 70F to 0F in 6 hours (21°C to -18°C)." Clive Justice, Douglas's father, wrote about it in the ARS Journal: ______________________________________________________________________________ Memories of the Sudden Freeze: November 11, 1955 Lower Mainland of BC ______________________________________________________________________________ From Journal American Rhododendron Society Summer 2007 Vol. 61 No. 3 by Clive L. Justice “ . . . However, this rhododendron milestone on the 17th had been overshadowed by the great freeze of November 11th, a week before. Never before or since has such a horrendous climatic holocaust occurred; the temperature dropped from 70°F to 0°F in 6 hours (21°C to -18°C) * It had been a beautiful warm wet fall. A wide range of broadleaved-evergreen trees and shrubs froze to the ground. Even birch trees still in full leaf and Western hemlock had their main branches killed; leaves and needles turned brown as if they had been scorched by fire.” *Keep in mind that the freezing point is 32°F and 0°C! ______________________________________________________________________________ I started noticing on the bus ride to school that many cedar tree tops were brown. It wasn't until quite recently that it occurred to me it was probably that hard cold snap that was the cause.
And of course, the problem these days of cedars being damaged by high temperature episodes rather than low is worse because it is part of an ongoing general trend.
Our H. macrophylla our doing fine but the rhododendrons were hit hard. One in an exposed location lost all buds (as it had last year), I think that one is now up for relocation. One that is quite sheltered lost all but two buds. Vast majority of the foliage on both have frost damage. It also took out an older Ceanothus (I believe a thyrsiflorus cultivar) that had already looked to be on its way out. Every single leaf and young stem have gone brown while for now it is still green below the bark on main stems.
Wouldn't the damage during high-temperature episodes be exacerbated by the lack of consistent moisture in the soil?
[QUOTE="The temperature dropped from 70F to 0F in 6 hours (21°C to -18°C)."[/QUOTE] I wonder where in the Lower Mainland Clive Justice saw those temperatures. At YVR on Dec 11, 1955, the maximum temperature was -2.8 C; and the minimum was -4.4 C. It dropped to -11.7 C the next day. and the high on Dec 10 was +8.9, which is a substantial change in three days but not very close to the quoted temperatures. On Jan 11/12, 2024 the YVR temperature dropped from +4.5 to -13.4 in two days, which is a significantly steeper gradient than what occurred in Dec, 1955.
Material sold as 'Victoria' is common in our region. (Correct identification may actually be 'Skylark').
The burning of the foliage of coastal conifers in recent years has been determined to be due to abnormally high air temperatures alone. With soils being moist at the same time having no ameliorating effect.
The temperatures in vitog’s post look correct for November 11th, they must have just mistyped. https://climate.weather.gc.ca/clima...d=contains&txtStationName=Vancouver+&time=LST
Take it up with Clive Justice. All I know is that we could feel the temperatures plummet that day and the subsequent damage belies the 'recorded' temperatures quoted. I wonder if Douglas Justice remembers his father talking about 'the great freeze'?
The damage from the November 1955 deep freeze is well recorded. Check out the links below. One focuses on the '55 freeze and the other on the '24, '35 (interestingly only 3 years prior to the Fire of 1938 on Vancouver Island) and the '55 freeze. One factor seems to be the same despite the year or location, that is that it was unseasonably warm on one day and the temperatures plummeted rapidly overnight and continued for some days. I am at 120 metres elevation on the North Shore and expected to see some loss of plants or shrubs after this year's freeze. It was as low as -18˚C .I'm amazed/pleased to find that I have not had one loss anywhere in the garden. I hike daily up through the upper reaches of the British Properties and thought that I would see obvious signs of damage, ie, loss of Rhodos, Cherries etc (or at least no flowers) but again quite surprised to see that hasn't happened. This is, of course, purely anecdotal. We did have quite substantial arctic outflow winds but perhaps less than areas in line with the winds coming down through the Fraser Valley like Langley, New Westminster, Burnaby etc. exp_for_priest_river_1957_daubenmire.pdf pnw_os_rn-129.pdf
The early-blooming cherries, particularly 'Whitcomb', had very few flowers this year in most of the area, but the photos posted from Gibsons showed good colour on this cultivar. It's usually a little colder there, things coming into bloom later, so it seems that 'Whitcomb' trees had not yet started to open when the frost hit and the still closed buds were not affected. Next to bloom 'Accolade' were much better though not as good as in most years, and the rest of the cultivars looked good.
No doubt our January deep freeze had a lasting impact on quite a few plants in our small suburban garden. I'm finally seeing Crocosmia coming back up but I think we'll be hard pressed to see more than 6 back out of a patch that used to be thick with them, easily 40 or more. I thought I'd lost a treasured prostrate Alstroemeria and while I lost the ones I'd dug up and potted last spring the ones in the garden bed are coming back up at last in the usual places. After seeing a virtual carpet of brown flower buds as well as plenty of leaves on the ground from our Camelias through February and March I'm happy to see there's now actually flowers in them!
Interestingly, all the rosemary died across our entire complex, down to the last nub. But I was thrilled to see my Rhododendron augustinii (in a tub on my balcony, now too big to move!) covered in blooms last week after I could not possibly protect something that big during the freeze. Heck, I can't even budge it back from the edge of the balcony! The bay laurel has some dieback, but the pomegranate came through like a champ. All the "killer plants" (our Sarracenias on the patio and roof) came through beautifully too.
We saw some rosemary plants in Gibsons last weekend that were looking good, @Willard remarked on them - I forget if she said the ones in her complex had all died.
Many fig trees here in New Westminster were severely damaged this winter. Some have no leaves on them, some have a few leaves and a few are fully leaved right now. Our fig has 2 branches with a few leaves and all the other branches look dead. I am considering cutting it down to close to the ground to give it a new start, rather than having the few living branches create an unbalanced tree. Is this the best approach?
The November 1955 deep freeze hit Victoria too. The next spring our Dad drove us past the Empress Hotel ito show us that all the ivy had died and we saw 6 story high dead vines being taken off the walls. We had just moved to Victoria and our parents had given my winter clothes and sled to the kids next door before we left Toronto because they had heard it didn't snow in Victoria. They bought me a another sled and winter clothes that winter.
