Weather

What is a cold climate?

– Posted in: FAQ

This photo was taken two days before the digital thermometer bottomed out in January 2005Quite a while ago, someone emailed me, asking what was a cold climate. I never did answer them, because I thought it was obvious. A cold climate is any climate too cold to grow the plants you really want to grow. [...]

Christmas eve sunrise

– Posted in: Miscellaneous

One of the nice things about short winter days is that it's not too difficult to get up before sunrise. These two photos were taken a bit after seven thirty in the morning. It's not going to be much of a white Christmas, I'm afraid. Sunday the snow pack was dissolved by rain and highs [...]

The Weather Watching Gardener

– Posted in: Recommended Links, Weather

Most gardeners don't start out as weather geeks, but I think most end up that way. The fate of one's plants is just too tied up with the weather. Garden chores will be different depending on the weather. And while golfers and swimmers rejoice at yet another hot, sunny day, we gardeners know another sunny [...]

Lucky 7

– Posted in: Plant info, Weather

Instead of a single day of good fortune like yesterday's auspicious 07/07/07, this has been a week of luck for one reason: rain. Although it can't be discerned from the surrounding woods with their uncommon fullness bordering on rainforest-like lushness, this summer has been uncommonly dry. Late spring and summer started out so well it [...]

I live in a cold climate

– Posted in: Miscellaneous

What I saw this morning [Photographer: Kathy Purdy]Just in case there's anyone reading this who doesn't yet understand what a cold climate is (I've had Australian searchers looking for "hardy plants" arrive at this site), I thought I'd give an illustration. When I got up about an hour earlier, the outdoor temperature was 36 degrees [...]

Does this look like spring to you?

– Posted in: Miscellaneous

This was the view out my kitchen door yesterday morning. We had rain which changed to snow as the day progressed. Because everything was wet, the heavy snow stuck to everything. When the wind picked up, the snow didn't blow off the branches but added weight to the force of the wind. Consequently branches were [...]

Blooming in March

– Posted in: Weather, What's up/blooming

I took this photo yesterday, a day ahead of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day. I knew that rain was predicted for Wednesday afternoon and throughout today, but late yesterday morning it was merely overcast and quite mild, and I thought, "Go looking for flowers now, or forget about it." So I went galomphing about in the [...]

Spring is just around the corner

– Posted in: Meditations, Mud Season

The trouble with that platitude is that Spring is so erratic around here that we often don't recognize it when it comes. For the next eight weeks or so, every time we hit a spell of bad weather, we will repeat to ourselves, and each other, "Well, spring is right around the corner." But we're [...]

Kaleidoscope Skies

– Posted in: Weather

Picture yourself in a boat on a river, With tangerine trees and marmalade skies I grew up during the Beatles era and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" has always been a fave in my top five. From the start, there was speculation that psychedelic drugs influenced John Lennon when he wrote the dreamy, trippy [...]

Snow Days of Winter

– Posted in: Weather

Not the Valentines Day love-in I was expecting, this was a storm for the record books. Under a state of emergency all day and through the night, my county was closed down and everyone was told to stay off the roads. When it was over the snow totals came in. My little, almost unknown, town [...]