Is that when the first robins sings from it's newly lined nest, when the flowers blossom on the ornamental plum trees, when the daffodils glow like beacons in the fields and the sunshine is so bright it is blinding after winters gray...or is it later, after several weeks or even a month of such bliss when winter circles back to cover the hills and mountains with snow again and the winds and rains return with forces that uproot trees and swell the rivers to the flood warning stage through March and maybe into April. For me, that is when Spring arrives...late April and into May when the rains are gentler, The winds are soft breezes, the silly flowering trees and daffodils that were fooled into blossoming during a pause in winter are gone and gradually, the rest of nature springs forth in new green growth.
The past 10 years or so we have had two springs. An early spring in the middle of winter and the second Spring after winter has finally fled. Both are beautiful.
Yep.
But within it we also get dogwood winter and blackberry winter, which only means we might have to add a sweater in the early morning dew.
And maybe put our shoes back on.
The Native Americans who settled here named the weeks when the temps dropped in spring. Seems that when the dogwoods bloom usually in early to mid April the temps drop maybe 10 degrees from norm. So the NAs called that Dogwood Winter. The crappie spawn then and it's a good time to fish in the lakes here as well.
Same thing happens in early June, before summer. The temps drop about 10 degrees for maybe 2 or three days and that's blackberry winter or some call it blackberry summer. Either way the temps drop when the blackberries bloom.
Generally from mid March on, the temps rise pretty quickly and by June it might be about 85 - 90, but during those two periods it will drop to 60 - 70. Most people wouldn't call that drop 'winter', but that was to distinguish it from the norm.
They aren't false anything, it's just Mother Nature's way of saying the dogwoods are blooming, go fishing!! Or the blackberries are blooming, get ready for picking.
A lot of people plant around those times too, depending on the moon to determine when.
It works.
I LOVED your story, Sharon, and I am quite concerned this year with being too anxious here at 7000 feet in Colorado... this has been a mild winter, yet today (and probably tomorrow) we are getting a snowstorm. Tulips are pushing their way up, and it will be back up into the 60's later this week. It was over 60 Thurs and Friday here... but our average last frost date is basically the end of May. It's a tease! Spring is a little different here... I am longing for my flip-flops.
My toes are loving this weather. They are now dressed in their finest OPI "Come to Poppy" and shining brightly in their old black Croc flip flops. Yes, they might have to take cover soon, but not this week. It is flip flop weather!
But you probably should wait till the snow melts, Brenda. Nothin' worse than icy toes, even those that glow with Poppy Polish.
7000 feet, Wow!
Stay warm up there.
I want to move my plants out and I'm afraid to. Just now sure what will happen. I remember a late frost in 2008 that did really weird things to my daylilies. They were up and got bit really bad. It didn't kill them but they were just weird looking that year.
I liked your extra story about the Native American's. COOL - I didn't know that!
Actually the frost doesn't kill the roots of the plants, just the blooms. But even though I'm dying to take my potted plants outside, I'll wait. That used to be a Mother's Day ritual.
I remember one year I was in Orlando in January and they had just received an unusual killing frost. Along the streets there are areas where they always have plantings of pansies and begonias, and those blooms on the pansies were fine, but the begonias were all blackened. It was very weird to see. Of course the begonias are tuberous so I guess that's why the entire plant was mush.
You only get one spring?
