A late cool spring. . .

Weeping Crap Apple and Copper Beech

It's been a strange spring. I hustled to get my vegetable transplants in because the weather was warming (and no temps below 40F in sight), but everything has stopped for the last week or so. There have also been some post-winter trauma in our rhododendrons, and my lovely huge lupine is just barely coming back. Likewise, one of my apple trees. . .my best producer (Macoun, I think) is leafing out erratically, and hardly had any flowers on it.

The latter issue isn't completely unexpected, since she had a good sized crop last year, and some cultivars do have alternate year bearing habits. But it's more than that. . .the leaves are sparse and some are quite small.

On the good news front, the weeping crab apple is at her most glorious this year. But notice the Copper Beech behind her. It's leafing out late, which is usual, but is also displaying an unusual pattern of leafing out, with the top way ahead of the lower branches. Oh the worry of a plants-person.

Tree Fall. How depressing

My garden journal tells me that we are about a week behind last year, in terms of leafing out and blooming. Olivia, my Cornus kousa, is also late. I'm thinking that we may have had more cold injury than usual this year. We had an extended period of single digits when there wasn't much snow on the ground. That may be the issue. And after two wet seasons, everyone had wet feet for most of the summer.

Jasper. Not depressing at all

I've also had cause to wonder what a healthy Maine forest looks like. We've had so much tree fall in our woods. Some of that is normal, I'm sure, but I can't help but wonder if we're seeing some climate change effects on these woods. We had to clear a lot of fallen trees off one of our trails. It was after a big storm, and where the trees that had grown up on the perimeter of the forest had been removed. So it may have just been human caused carelessness. It is hard to know what is caused by changing climate, and what falls within the realm of normal weather fluctuations.

It's hard not to feel a little blue, waiting for Spring to come. I planted a couple of Ranunculus corms and a Giant Brunnera root today. And an image of Jasper never fails to bring a smile.