Hi everyone, Quite different here : the total rain amount for May so far is 21.3 mm, not to mention a cold North-East wind for the past 3 days, maples don't like it at all...
I know we had a few sporadic down pours forecast, these have not materialised for me.. but often it doesn’t contribute much towards the potted trees in any case.. re repotting TBH I’ve been slip potting with a little loosening round the sides and bottom over the past few weeks..will you be doing any root pruning now?
I wouldn't. Too late or too early (here). I sometimes repot maples in mid-June, especially when it's rainy and warm enough (like in Japan), and root-prune them, but not as hard as I do when I repot in Feb/March. In that case, I don't prune the top part, the branches, or very lightly.
Yes, if needed, mild to moderate root pruning. Probably wouldn't risk ultra extreme levels of root pruning at this time of year. (like @AlainK said!) Only caveat is to avoid heatwaves etc. The rationale for repotting and/or root pruning at this time of year is that root growth hasn't properly started yet, but now the first flush of canopy growth is fully extended the maple is just about to go into a major root elongation phase and will establish in the new potting medium more quickly. (Interesting experiment - revisit a maple repotted in early spring at this time of year and you will likely find the rootball is exactly the same size as at time of repotting and not established at all in the new soil area.)
10 days here now of 28C t0 35C. this was after a cooler and wetter spring then normal. Everything is exploding in the garden. Even the Romaine lettuce is now ready to eat. Will cool off this weekend and then looks like seasonal temps. Doing a big reno right now so our sandpoint well pump is disconected for the past 3 weeks. Only watering the container pots with our "city" water until pump gets reconnected ( hopefully May 24 - 25th). We have a large series of underground water lines only connected to the sandpoint well so many areas of the garden could use a drink!
That's why I do the majority of potting up in June, extending until the second flush of leaves. This has been a successful strategy for me. But it continues to be quite cold, down to around 5 at night, so as Alain says the maples aren't very happy about it. The pink types are getting some of that leaf blackening that we all dread. I got a Taylor, by accident, and it's survived so far by being ignored and left in the sun, but not sure it will make it much further! Indeed, only around 28mm so far this month, not nearly enough.
We have had less than 7 mm of rain here in May so far. In April we got total ca 20 mm, that is significantly less than normal. My water reserves are exhausted for now, despite they were largest ever (I used the snow, that was piled up on my figs for winter protection to keep my 5 m3 of water reservoires full of water as long as possible). I purchased another 6 m3 of water reservoire in May, but lack of rain has not provided a chanche to fill it up yet. They predict 0.1mm of rainfall this week.
Hot : 24°C, and very little wind. Very dry, and it will be like that for the next two weeks if I can trust "Météo France"... (To me, above 22°C, it's "hot", above 28-30, it's almost unbearable !)
back to the weather.... 5 days of off / on rain, glorious! after our driest spell on record from the start of May thru mid september
After extensive research and some good advice I purchased an Armstrong Maple to replace my ancient cherry 'grandmother' that had to be taken down 4 years ago: I was worried about it during the CRAZY heat this year; I had the chance to get to know an elder fellow who remembers a creek running through our property; maybe there is underground moisture which saves the tree in this HEAT?: temp ranged average 35 to 40-ish this last season (hubby is a retired meteorologist) ~ my greens were a disappointment (bolted/bitter) but I grew Cantelope for the 1st time in 20 years! Yes, our climate is definitely changing rapidly. My new norm? Plant greens etc. in March/April under hoop covers and try direct sowing early August for late season harvest (under plastic hoop cover again). and yes, Otto, Glorious Rain!
It's 6PM and still 28° : I've never seen that on October 8th. Most of my potted trees have scroched leaves. Not a pretty sight... It's going to last at least until next Thursday when we'll have some rain, then temps around 23°. Fortunately, there are no water restrictions in my area though the Loire has never been so low.
I have scorched leaves also here in Southern England. 24° here today and next few days. Some are taking quite a hit.
Crazy weather, innit?... Unfortunately, I'm afraid we'll have to get used to it and we maple lovers, will have to find ways of keeping our trees safe. The only good news is that in this period of hikes in prices, my fuel tank is full, and if not so long ago we would put the central heating on in mid-September, that's not the case this year. Saves money, and release fewer deadly particles in the air...
November 25th and looking like the lowest rainfall total on record for us for the month of November. I must say, the clear sunny and partly cloudy days have been ideal for fall / winter clean up and care. Long range forcast is still another week of clear skies with very nice seasonal temps. ( highs around 8C and lows zero to -2C)
We've had a lot of rain in the past weeks here - at last ! The grounwater/water tables (?) are still lower than usual because of the drought in summer, and because the trees kept their leaves longer, so they pumped up the water that could have refilled them. Many trees in town and in the parks still have (brown) leaves, but not for long now. The temperatures stayed slightly above "normal", but tomorrow we'll probably have a mild frost (0°C). Today was very sunny, but I couldn't really enjoy it because I attended a conference this afternoon. Tomorrow, we'll have "a milky sky" as we say in French (un ciel laiteux), I'll probably have a long walk...
Good morning everyone! Back in the early spring of this year, it appeared that my two remaining maples were quite dead. All the expensive hybrids had died the previous winter as a result of very long and extremely cold weather. However, after some normal care and attention the two that were left, both came back to life, which was a pleasant surprise. Then later in the summer, the unthinkable happened and we had a lengthy period of extreme forest fires here. 27 kilometres of power lines and 208 structures in the North Shuswap area were destroyed. As a result we were evacuated for a two week period. We were not the only area so affected, and the Kelowna area also suffered similarly. Prior to the evacuation, the smoke level here was the worst we have ever seen. For more than three months our air pollution was right off the scale. This morning, as I write, the smoke has long gone, we're under 100% cloud and we are to expect either rain or snow over the next few days. Overnight lows are forecast to be in the -6º to -8º range and daytime highs as high as +6º. It appears that we are entering a period of time in which we can expect increasing forest fire activity for the foreseeable future. Unfortunately, our current resources have proved to be inadequate to effectively combat these huge fires. The local fire, nicknamed the "Fire Dragon" spanned an area of 35 kilometres by 35 kilometres.
Wow... Forest fires are disasters here in our "small" countries of Europe, and they're more and more common, though not so devastating this year in France : we learned from previous years, but were lucky I think. I often saw TV reports on fires in Canada and the US, and it's such on a huge scale it looks like apocalypse. It's easier to manage fires on a "smaller" scale than those that destroy hundreds of hectares (or thousands of acres).
;-) Not exactly : when "le ciel est couvert", it's mainly grey, even dark grey, but with no rain - yet, but perhaps occasional showers. When whe have "un ciel laiteux", it's in-between blue and grey. Ciel couvert : Ciel laiteux. No rain in the further 12 hours, but it will probably come later : See what I mean ? ... I wouldn't drink milk that colour though. ^_^
We've had 145 mm of rain already this month. That's a lot. You can tell when the ground is really saturated, because as you walk in a field, you see fountains from 10-20 m away, where the pressure of your step pushes the water through the mole's tunnels, to the nearest exit... Last night the first freeze of the year, -0.8, and it will freeze again tonight, already 0.3 before midnight. But we had the first sunny day that I remember all month, today. So made a lot of progress getting potted maples (and other species) moved under cover for the winter. Got all of the tropical gingers into the poly tunnel, along with various tender young plants. "Le ciel laiteux" I think is higher clouds than "couvert." But for now, I'll settle for "il pisse pas..."
My frinds are surprised to see what they say look like a peach-tree with leaves still on. We've had about tn days with temps below zero (-5° C at worst) and a couple of days when temps were about -2° C during the day. This photo of my Acer laevigatum was taken two days ago. Now that the weather is getting milder I'm curious to see if it still keeps its leaves :
We have been on our property for 40 years and it definitely has been as cold as the 1985 arctic blast of winter for sure. Our coldest temp reading was -19C one morning. but the coldest day had a temp of -16C but a northeast wind of over 40km brought it down to -25C. Then 45 cm of snow which insulated things nicely. Now back to seasonal 2 to 4 C at night and 6 to 8 C during the day with west coast rain.
