Friday, May 7, 2010

It's been a crazy spring here in Washington: we've had very hot days, very cool days, and some average days

Nothing below freezing though. Most years if you heard someone voice the words "this has been a crazy spring" you would know immediately that they were a novice gardener; every spring is crazy, but you know what though, this has been a crazy spring. I have to say though, mercurial as things have been it has been a wonderful year for gardens. I'm fanatically obsessed with weather as so many gardeners are. I have 14 weather sites bookmarked and they are visited pretty regularly. One place I haven't gone lately is to NOAA's "past weather" where you can check the normal or average high and low for every day. Because we haven't been close enough to normal to make that a useful exercise! Today, however, we're supposed to get pretty close to a high of 73F and a low of 53F.

On balance, we're several weeks ahead except in a few instances. Dogwoods, for example, were early and Azaleas started early but seem to be hanging on nicely. When we got back Monday from 9 days in Florida I think the non-permanent biomass (including new twigs) must have doubled during the time we were gone. My own garden felt claustrophobic, the Beltsville Library garden had gone from just beginning to lush, and the Arboretum looked, and felt, like early summer. It's been good weather for weeds.  Over the course of this week though, the 90 degree days dropped to 80's, now into the 70's so maybe we can get back into our normal late spring routines.

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