The winter that wasn’t really winter
In my 20 years as a gardener, I have never experienced a mild winter like this one. We’ve all been calling it the winter that wasn’t because we rarely had snow that stayed very long and temperatures...
View ArticleHeat wave in March? I thought I had seen it all…
Well, I thought I’d seen it all in my 20-plus years as a gardener. But I have never experienced a late winter heat wave like this. We are enjoying end-of-May temperatures in mid-March. We live across...
View ArticleSpring’s frosty disappointments: droopy daffodils
Ah, spring 2012, what a challenge you are! As one would expect after a non-winter, a March heat wave that lasted more than a week — followed by nights of hard frost — there have been casualties. We...
View ArticleSpring 2012: dreaded DROUGHT again
If there there’s one weather condition that just drives me to despair as a gardener, it’s drought. We gardeners work so hard to choose the right plants and then get everything weeded and edged because...
View ArticleMillion dollar rain — just in time
After one of the driest springs in years, our area got a good all-day soaking on June 1st. Oh, happy sigh-of-relief day: 1.75 inches of rain. Farmers call this the “million dollar rain” — the day-long...
View ArticleSnow clearing then and now
We had quite the snowstorm with at least a foot of the white stuff. We got more than half of our double driveway shoveled the hard way, then our neighbor showed up, and he and his golden retriever did...
View ArticleWhat a difference a year makes: March 2013 vs March 2012
Where is spring? March 2013 is certainly shaping up differently from the March that we had last year. We have shivered in below-average temperatures so far in March and winter is going to keep going...
View ArticleSigns of spring
After a winter in which we all unfortunately became familiar with the term “polar vortex” we are at last seeing signs of spring. This week I heard more bird song in my neighborhood. And the house cats...
View ArticleThis is the ice age – where to get respite
The ice coverage on the Great Lakes is nearing record levels. As of March 6, 92.2% of the Great Lakes were covered, which is the most coverage we have seen since the 70’s. According to the Weather...
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