Springtime?

We are nearing the end of the year, 2015, and one full week into the winter season although it feels more like spring.  The temperatures have been quite mild throughout the fall and they continue to be mild into early winter.

 

And, if I think it feels like spring, so do all my perennials plants.  I totally enjoy the warm temperatures, but I know the plants are confused.  The grass is still green and growing even though it is usually brown by now.  This is a benefit for our pasture-grazing cattle and sheep.  Green grass is tastier and more nutritious than brown.  But, I am more concerned with my garden softscape. Perennials that have died-back for the winter season have responded to the warm weather and are beginning to grow again, prematurely.  The growing tips of bulbs are starting to peek out of the ground.  And, several of my spring-flowering perennials are actually flowering.  This is not good.

 

 

 

Don’t get me wrong.  I am enjoying the surprise gifts of bright color among the grey and muted colors of a hibernated winter garden, but…

 

what flowers now will not flower come the ‘real’ spring.  Those flowers buds will have been spent off-season. 

 



Of course, there is nothing I can do about the weather, so I appreciate the blossoms now.  I imagine the flowers that I will miss in the spring, due to their untimely blooming,  will be diminished by the outstanding show of many more flowers that will be in bloom...at the right time!

 

I guess I can categorize this unseasonably warm season as a win-win situation.

 

Yep, I will take my flowers anytime, anywhere I can get them.





 

My spring flowering ‘flowering quince’ is flowering.  The coral-pink blooms are beautiful against the backdrop of the winter greys of the forest trees.