Hello Alain - whilst we can invest in rain water harvesting facilities and equipment - it does need to rain to have any hope!!! Hope all is well with you :) It was a very dry February in central England..the driest for decades apparently..we’ve had more mixed weather in March and April thankfully. What is strange is that it didn’t really feel like a harsh/cold winter with very few frosts that I can recall..a few cold days in December and a few days of light snow in the first week of March.. but apart from that pretty mild…however I have lost quite a few things in the garden..sone phormian tenax plants, Hamamelis, and several agapanthus look rather sorry for themselves (rotten in the middle), JM look fine fortunately..somehow I lost no JM as a result of last years heatwave..I think it was helped by the fact all of mine are in pots!
Wow I’ve missed everyone I couldnt log onto the forum. Yes new Westminster bc is so cold but I feel like some of my maples are doing better.
It's much better when seasons are like what the're supposed to be. One of my favourite songs (I still have the LP I bought in Dundee in the 70s):
Hello Alain: We are about 500 kms (by road) from the coast where we are. So it wasn't so much wet as an awful lot of snow and very cold weather. Our winters usually deliver periods of extended cold in the minus 17ºC range. We also reached -22ºC several times, and this caused our main drain to freeze on us which was great fun to fix. A permanent fix to this annoying little problem will be forthcoming once we get warmer days. We are indeed blessed with an abundant water source nearby, so that is one area we are not concerned about. Despite the cold and snow, we have a couple of dozen seed flats in the greenhouse doing very well. Hopefully, warmer days are soon to arrive so we can fill our raised beds with new seedlings.
Well here in West Yorkshire we have had the wettest March since 1981 Oh and did it rain !!! just goes to show the difference in the weather even though we are only 180 miles apart from each other. Just had two good days in the garden , but day off tomorrow because it's forecast for rain !! and next week doesn't look very promising either. Plus we still have this sneaky cold wind to contend with.
Believe it or not, we're jealous! We had a pretty normal March, rain was a little heavier than usual, like 20%. That was good, but not nearly enough to make up for February -- usually one of the wettest months -- where we got none at all. (If you think I'm exaggerating, I am: the official count was 1.2 mm, basically a couple of mists). That, following the extreme drought of 22, not to mention 19 and 20, have left us in a sorry state. There's been a lot of talk around here about where exactly the Armoricain Plateau begins. It's a big granit sheet that runs all the way west through Bretagne (Brittany), starting, well, here. Once on it, streams and river sources are mainly from run-off, and without adequate rain there's an automatic water shortage. To the east is the Parisian Basin, which is mostly alimented by the underground water table. When you drill a well in the Parisian Basin, you hit water relatively quickly; on the plateau, you have to bore very deeply before hitting iron infused water that isn't potable (though it can be used for irrigation). We're right on the edge of the plateau, but on the plateau side. We have a well that doesn't dry out, and one that does. The stream, which is part of the Orne watershed, goes dry more and more years now, though 20 years ago it never failed. So bring on the rain... Anyway, Yorkie, we all know that in another month your maples will be putting all the competition to shame, lol. -E
Might be the beginning of June before all mine are out at this rate !!! , so slow it's like watching paint dry, also we have a bad weather forecast for next week so that's not going to help much either frosts in the north and snow up in Scotland.
Not one to complain, I can still honestly say that this has been one of the most miserable springs in my long memory. Everyone comments on the gloomy weather and longs for a blue sky. Plants are slow coming into bloom but do stay in bloom a bit longer than they might if temperatures were warmer. I could be wrong but that's my story and I'm sticking to it (as my grandmother used to say). It is the weeds, especially Cardamine hirsuta (Snapweed) that are taking full advantage of conditions that cause other, more refined, plants to cringe. And you can hear them laughing! None of my several maples show any interest yet in opening their buds.
yes, here in Chilliwack same conditions as @Margot and @Lisa Harry Looks like the weather is finally turning though as a definite warming trend coming after this last bit of rain today. Forecast is now 28C for Chilliwack on satuday the 29th
As you know @dicky5ash , I am less than 20 miles away. That cold snap in December was our coldest temperature reached here since December 2010. Despite mild temps in other parts of the winter that week would have been the killing zone for your marginally hardy plants. I don't know if it made any difference but it came only five months after our hottest ever temperature. My parents have Phormiums which they overwinter in an unheated greenhouse and those came through the winter unharmed. I feel they probably don't need the extra protection most years, but for a once in a decade winter it seems to make the difference. I also look to have no casualties among my JM's which is good news! All rain storage here is completely full and has been for most of the winter. Temperatures predicted to go down to freezing on Monday night, hopefully no damage will be done...
Thanks Maf..Interesting..I didn’t see it dip much lower than -5C in in that week in December where I am..but it certainly did have sone ill affects..I have 2 large bottle brushes that I’ve had for 15years..they have completely defoliated, a 13ft mature olive tree in the ground in a raised boarder that’s been there for about 10 years, that has lost 70% of its leaves.. something definitely untoward
Luckily I don't have anything exotic enough to have to worry too much about the cold. Hopefully the pentaphyllums were OK in the greenhouse! It was cold enough here, for long enough, that I was extremely concerned that a waterlily tub had frozen solid! (Thankfully it did not)
I don't have agreenhouse, and though my last one was in a protected place where it almost never froze, I'm afraid it's dead. Good to hear it lives somewhere else, thanks for that. ;-)
@AlainK they look OK so far but will have to wait till late May to see if they leaf out as usual. I have three older ones and two one year-olds at the minute. Strangely one of the babies has started to leaf out already, but only from near the base of the stem, still trying to figure out if that is a good or bad sign....
Here they don't leaf out until June, usually. Hey @AlainK, I think I have one of yours that's still alive! I'll have to send one to you, once I know if any made it. All of the larger ones in the ground died, though.
24°C on my car thermometer. Maybe it was only 22, but it was unusually warm. It started to rain this evening, a continuous drizzle for several hours. Good... 40°C in the south of Spain today, the previous record for the same period was 36. Oh my...
Further north, by contrast, we are in a cooler than normal trend this spring. A couple of nights cold enough for frosts also, one of the mornings this week (Tuesday?) was down to zero degrees C. No damage done as far as I can tell.
Had 2 days make it to the low 60's F this month before yesterdays mini heat wave, blink and you would have missed it. As the temp rose to 75˚F mid-morning the marine layer reasserted itself and the temp dropped back to the mid 60's F before noon. Might have been enough to kick start the maples though as we are 4 to 5 weeks behind normal. Back to highs in the low 50's for the next 10 day forecast period.
To me what is depressing is a winter that looks like autumn, a spring that suddenly looks like winter, aénd a summer that looks like we're inside an oven. I like the rhythm of the seasons. I already posted "the january Man" several times, but that's really how my bio-whatever-you-call-it responds to... ;-D I find each season has its charm. I wouldn't like a world that keeps unchanged from January till December. Winter is beautiful too : I remember when one day I took the cable car from Morzine where I lived to Avoriaz where I worked : when we got above the rain, there was a splendid landscape, mountains in the sun above a blanket of clouds...
I did my first proper water of all the pots today..probably could have stretched it out for a few more days. @maf how about you?
Pretty much the same - this week is the first time I have been without rain long enough to think about "proper" watering this year. I had done some watering earlier in the season but it more fell into the "just in case" category and iirc was usually followed by heavy rain! It is pretty much the start of repotting season now and weather is co-operating - mild and not too hot or sunny, and forecast to stay similar till the end of the month at least.
