LeafNotes

More heavy wet snow greeted me again this morning when I looked out the window.  Just an inch or so.  There has been more winter weather this past week than the rest of winter combined.  Just heard on the news this evening that the tulip farms in Skagit valley will be running a little behind with their blooms this year. View the bloom map for updates.

I finally cut my burgundy hyacinths and put them in a vase.  They didn’t bounce back from the wet, heavy snow and are now adorning my bedroom dresser instead.

I also re-located my outdoor thermometer and installed a radiation shield for more accurate readings.  I started working on relocating my rain gauge, but the hail got too much for me so I will wait for a drier day.

Otherwise, things are looking good.  I am so excited for all the tulips to bloom which hopefully isn’t too far away!

Oh, I almost forgot, my first camellia of the season started blooming today.  Bright red and beautiful!  I’ll try to snap a picture.

1:20 pm All the snow from the day before melted, but by 8 am this morning, it had started to snow again and is still snowing. It’s coming down hard but is not accumulating much because according to my weather station, it’s a couple degrees above freezing at 35.6 degrees F. I’ll keep you posted.

As for the heavy wet snow from the day before, most of my plants pretty much did bounce back upright. The narcissus are still upright and have wisely kept their buds closed up tight. No garden damage to report. Hopefully it will stay this way. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the temperature holds above freezing because just recently I planted all my dahlia tubers, and they do not like to freeze. At least they hadn’t sprouted.

5 pm The snow has stopped and the temp. is going up.  Yeay!

The park in front of my home this morning at 8 am

7:40 am Well, thank goodness I decided to go outside last night at 11pm (very peaceful and I enjoyed every minute of the half hour I was out there) to shake the snow off the trees and shrubs because it is still snowing! I’ll take a measurement soon. Most trees look okay except for one quaking aspen. Since it’s a high elevation tree and should be used to this type of thing, I hope it “bounces” back soon. Otherwise, I can tell already that I’m going to have to truss up my 6, now scraggly, Italian cypress after this little storm. They are still small, just 2-3 feet, so this shouldn’t be too difficult other than being on a 40 degree slope that is. More later I am sure.

1:30 pm My measurement this morning was a grand total of 3 inches of snow. It stopped snowing around 8 am.

What better way to start a new blog than with the rare and unusual. It’s snowing, and snowing a lot! This is of note since I live in Western Washington at an elevation of approximately 644 feet and it almost never snows here. I can drive 15 minutes to a lot of snow in the Cascades all winter long, but here in Maple Valley, snow is unusual. It started snowing at 5:45 PM PDT and 2 hours later, it’s still coming down. Huge flakes too.

What this means for my garden

Well, as soon as it started to snow and the temperature was dropping quickly, I rushed out to harvest all the blooming daffodils. Okay, only 5 were blooming, but they are now in a vase in doors. The tete-a-tete’s are also blooming, but I just dropped pots over the few groupings I have and they are a-okay. The hyacinth are also blooming, but I am guessing they are hardy enough to survive this though perhaps will be pushed over a bit. The other hundred or so narcissus are still in tight buds and should be just fine outside. Unfortunately an azalea is in full bloom in the backyard and those blooms will be done for, but the rest of the yard should be just fine. Most other flowers are still in tight buds or are bulbs that are done blooming. The tulips haven’t started yet, and like I mentioned, the narcissus were just barely starting. So, not too much to worry about and I will just enjoy the snow!

8:00 pm 1.5 inches
10:30 pm 2.5 inches

Update: It’s 34 degrees F and with 2.5 inches of snow, that means any plant that isn’t sturdy is now stooped over completely from the heavy wet snow. The arborvitae are completely mangled and the Italian cypress have some issues as well though they are not alone. I think I am going to have my work cut out for me tomorrow with trying to straighten out the bends. So much for my earlier optimism- I forgot that snow is heavy. At least tomorrow is expected to be in the mid 40’s and sunny!

Snowing on my backyard