Musings of a Weird Spring

Things never cease changing. I hope I didn't lose followers with my month hiatus.

March was very warm and several plant species started blossoming early. The result is most likely many frozen flowers meaning much fruit will be lost. I had early blossoms forming on apple and pear trees and starting to open late March to early April. Some are still opening. My honey crisp apple still has some blossoms and has had for a month. The University of Minnesota has been highly successful finding apple varieties that have fruit even in the cold harsh Northern Great Plains environment. The first blossoms were a month ago. Some froze but the later ones will probably bear fruit. We had 23 degrees when the pear tree bloomed. The tender flower parts, the stigma, style, ovary, pistals and stamens just can't tolerate much frost.

A tree which doesn't know whether to leaf out or flower. 

The apple flower stages are bud, pink, popcorn, bloom and post bloom. Apple buds withstand frost into the low 20 degrees. The pink stage survives temperatures in the mid to high 20's and open apple blossoms will freeze at about 30 to 31 degrees. This all depends on whether the cold temperatures hugged the ground or were higher up, and was there wind to kept the temperatures stirred up. Also, was the tree in a protected area. Apples produce the flower buds starting in July the previous year. Other fruits like berries form the blossoms in the spring just before they open.

Two methods may be bred into apples to help insure survival of apple fruit. One is to spread the opening of blossoms over a longer time or find varieties that have the blooms open later in the year when chance of frost is low. During April while the early blossoms were forming and opening we had three periods of time with temperatures into the mid to low twenties. Hopefully there will be some apples and pears. Our usual bloom time is about the second or third week of May.

Lilacs usually bloom in late May for Memorial day. This year many froze and a few odd survivibg lilac flowers are opening now. One of the odd items are my raspberries. One cane leafed out early and has flowers ready to open. Others of the same variety have just beginning green buds to start leaves. Why does nature have such a diversity within species? I guess survival of the fittest and this is how evolution truly works.

A lavendar plant loved by bees

My beehives are up and humming along with flowers to forage on for nectar and pollen. The current main flower is the dandelion. Four years ago, I lost all my hives. The winter lasted with snow finally leaving my back yard the middle of April. When I could finally get to my hives to check I tried to order new bee colonies. All bee colonies were sold out. This year there were flowers opening for bees to forage in late March. I would like to have had new colonies in March.

Why I keep bees - I love the sweetnes of honey

A Christmas tree grower has spent many nights watering his young tender trees to warm them and kept them from freezing or the new growth from freezing. If the new growth all freezes on a Christmas tree, it just doesn't grow much that year. The frost had some new trees laying flat on the ground but they didn't freeze. Even though Spring is early, we need to remember our frost free day is usually in May. In my area it is May 24. Life can be tough in nature, we have to be tougher.

One last note for pie cherry lovers. Michigan estimates that the pie cherry growing area has 80% loss of blossoms due to frost. Somehow, the canners will find some cherries for cherry pie filling. This occurred about 20 years ago and they started using black sweet cherries for pies.

The Garden Doc