Bring On Spring!
Well, as is typical here in Tennessee, spring officially arrived last Thursday and today it snowed! It snowed so hard, in fact, that when I was driving home around lunch time you couldn’t see from one telephone pole to the next. Near white-out conditions! 20 minutes later, the sun came out and as quickly as the snow came down, it was gone. Unfortunately, it cleared off late this afternoon and as I write this at almost 10 p.m., the temperature threatens to drop into the low 20’s and do some real damage to tender buds and foliage that are just beginning to break.
Today, I went out and covered a few things–something I normally don’t do. But I need to get some good photos of a few early risers like the trilliums, epimediums, quince, and a few spring wildflowers this year, as well as a couple of plants that are quite rare and have decided to emerge a little earlier than normal (of course!). So…I gave in and took the blankets out to try and save a few plants from tonight’s low of 22 degrees. I hope it doesn’t get colder than that or my covering may not do a bit of good. We’ll see.
Plants that are still tightly budded will be just fine and the temperatures are supposed to moderate quickly and be back to more spring-like conditions in a day or two. In the meantime, I’m taking a few precautions and hoping for the best! I’ll post an update in a few days and let you know how it goes. See you in the garden!
