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April 10, 2007 ~ A Wager Too Risky
Tuesday.
The cold came abruptly, Friday afternoon. There had been no forecast of precipitation to accompany it, but by Friday night, big snowflakes were falling thick. That night, the temperatures dropped to the low twenties. Three inches of snow covered the ground by the time I woke up Saturday morning. The clouds broke early. The snow immediately began to melt quickly in the sun.
Despite the quick melt, the snow had already done its damage. New flowers were broken and wilting. New leaves were growing limp.
And now, a few days later, the dogwood blossoms look brown and crumpled, the shriveled forsythia blossoms hang forlorn from the branches. Many trees have lost every single leaf they produced, and will have to start over. Our two azaleas were covered in buds about to burst before the snow, now it looks as if those buds will never bloom. Each one has turned brown and stiff.
It's incredible to me, how these plants take this risk every year, blooming and leafing before the last threat of frost has passed, trying to stretch every possible moment out of the growing season. Most years, they are fine. It is fairly mild here, and temperatures rarely drop far enough to really cause damage this time of year. But then we have a year like this one, with abnormally hot temperatures early, that encourage the plants much sooner than normal, followed by a hard, deep freeze. This time, their wager was too risky.
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