The Yoshino Cherry Trees have opened their first blossoms of 2012 today! They are early, as they were last year.
1st Yoshino Blossoms – March 10, 2012
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Tag Archives: Spring
Spring Already
Well, January is well into way, closer to the end than the beginning, but it’s not even Winter here anymore. It should be, though it’s not. It’s been very rainy, though it was forecasted that would be the case, a more mild winter, but overall, it’s too much like that.
We’ve had two thunderstorms this year, major thunderstorms, many rain storms besides those too. Today it was really rainy, quite rainy, hard, hard, hard, lots of thunder & lightening. Booming, wonderful thunder.
Today I remembered seeing daffodils springing up somewhere we’d been a few days ago, and so that sparked me to go out when the rain let up a bit and look at where mine are. Surprise, surprise, mine are coming up too. I was thinking that maybe the ones we’d seen had been planted by a landscaper (you know, commercial area, throw away plants or perennials? Hard to say unless you stake them out forever.) So anyhow, there are mine, some here, a few inches high, some there just peaking out, some other there, a bit more than peaking … tomorrow there may be more.
That’s early. That’s OK, but it’s not exactly something that has me at ease, I’ve seen what a late frost can do (April 2007) and this is way earlier than then, how it was in early spring (the still official winter by just a month! spring this year to compare to the early spring that year being into February …) usually spring happens in March, maybe signs in late, late February, but that’s what’s normal, March gives way to much blossoming and April even more and green leaves galore.
So we had it all happen a few weeks early last year. Now this year, even earlier. Just cyclical weirdness.
The U. S. A. has that all the time, has always, since before records were kept. Don’t quote me, it’s just my understanding of it, from billions of areas of life, not just one source, not source-able past that.
Crepe Myrtles in 2011
Our Crepe Myrtle didn’t start blooming until just this week, well, noticeable blooms forming the other week (finally!) and opening this week. It’s still a young tree, but had bloomed last year, the year before, and the year before that, and we expected it to bloom nicely this year.
In Georgia it’s notable how many Crepe Myrtles there are, looking at them you just can’t help but notice their showy full bloom splendor in the hot June, July, August months.
This year, I noticed other Crepe Myrtles not flowering, or flowering in a spotty, nastily skimpy way. I haven’t seen more than a handful of fully in bloom Crepe Myrtles (not that I’m a big traveler.)
Our Crepe Myrtle is a Muskogee and is supposed to have a very long blooming period. Not starting until August (and not very much at that) isn’t even a short blooming period. 2011 = Very Bad Year for Crepe Myrtles
Peony 2010 - photo taken May 14, 2010
Spring came early this year. It was absolute that many of my plants & trees did their Spring Thing weeks earlier than normal.
- Peony 2011 – photo taken May 1, 2011
With that impact noticeable it must have some sort of impact on Crepe Myrtles, I guess. Not enough “down time”? Not exactly, the Crepe Myrtle had no leaves for a long time, not too early at all, in other words. Pretty much when they usually do, I think. FWIW it’s just annoying, the one grace to a hot summer day is looking at lush, vibrant Crepe Myrtles blooming splendidly against a brilliantly blue sky.
Not in 2011.
Daffodils are now Thriving
Our daffodil population is exploding. Every day more and more are popping up. Today our first white & yellow daffodils opened. They are lovely.
It’s very hot again, and this week the humidity went to Southern Summer types. Bad enough outside, but inside it is worse right now, our A/C is totally not working (only the fan will come on, or the Heat Pump [like we want that right now :roll-eyes] – it’s too old and needs overhauled — really needs to be hauled OUT. We need new, better, the one we have NEVER worked awesomely, never was up to snuff most of the summer. Too small and wrong for the space we have.
Crepe Myrtle killed back, waiting for re-growth
I’m awaiting my Crepe Myrtle to re-grow. In 2007 the April 17th-ish freeze killed back all the then Crepe Myrtle spring growth. It was rather far along with nice little leaves showing … then black goo from the two days of freezing temps. It did put out some puny leaves after that, eventually, that’s all.
Next year it had nice leaves, that’s all.
This year (2009) it was putting out little buds to open into leaves and then blam, an early April freeze, just barely, again. But this year the freeze was lesser than the 2007 April freeze by far and wide with the Crepe Myrtle very early into it’s growth for 2009, and noticeably affected just barely, but within a few days it was just brown dried up stuff where the leaf buds were. That nice new growth starting cut off. 
I’ve looked online and found info from 2007 about freeze damage, and the basic consensus is to leave the poor trees alone, and when another warm spell of a few days lasts it’ll put out new growth again.
Thing is I’m hoping for more than growth, but nice leaves and actual blooms for once. I supposed it’s a young Crepe Myrtle and perhaps hasn’t liked where it is, in the South with the drought, and in the front with not full sunlight all day. It’s where the landscaper we hired years ago had put a Crepe Myrtle on our landscape plans, and we put it in finally a few years ago. It’s supposed to get lilac color blooms. We’ve had plenty of water the last few weeks, and that’s a plus, hope the Crepe Myrtle see it that way.
There are a few suckers coming up that I need to get rid of, and perhaps I could do a little tiny shape pruning, other than that, there’s not much I can do. I sure won’t top it off, no way. That’s a very mean thing to do to a Crepe Myrtle and I bet 75% of the Crepe Myrtles I see around the NE GA area are topped off every year. Horrid.