Weather Chat - 2023

blown_dry · 2023-02-04T23:18:06+00:00

A few hard frosts lately, but spring is taking hold for sure.

Teddahlia

"The ground shouldn't freeze too deep in one evening at that temperature should it? " It generally takes a couple of days at that temp to freeze the soil to 6 inches deep. Unfortunately what can always happen is that even freezing an inch or or two deep creates extremely hard soil that is difficult to dig. Then the soil has to thaw for you to dig and another cold snap can prevent you from digging. The pessimist in me is writing this.

blown_dry

Teddahlia Is that the giant red waterlily that was such a stand-out when I was there?

Teddahlia

You are probably the only person besides Dick Parshall who saw all of our seedlings. He probably did not see as many as you did. The waterlily in the foreground is seedling 21-31 a beautiful flower in a pleasing color but it has just one or two too many rows of florets. We are planning on naming it . The tall purple waterlily that I am holding is one that I personally mistook for our other tall purple waterlily. Both grow really tall and are purple. I thought we had only one purple waterlily in the seedlings. The 2023 seedlings continued to bloom after you left and another purple waterlily has bloomed and it is a deeper purple and probably not 7 foot tall flower but more likely 4 feet. Many other flowers bloomed after you left and it was nice finding the good ones without the worry that 150 people were going to visit in a day or two. After the tour was over, we got to enjoy our seedlings and our yard for many weeks. Alas, the frost has taken away most of it now.

KitCMC

Teddahlia might be my favorite you’ve posted all year! Beautiful!!

KitCMC

edewitt can’t imagine it would - it usually takes a week or two for the ground to freeze by me and we get very cold here.

KitCMC

Got our first freeze last night with a bang at _25°
I’m about half way through digging & packing.

calico20hill

Third night in a row of freezing. I think we have 2 beds left to dig. Than heavens for the beautiful clear sunny days to take care of the digging chores!

MissyWeitzel

edewitt I live in Michigan and have dahlia friends who dig well into December here. I have planted tulips the week before Christmas. I think you'll be ok. Something you could do is put clear plastic over the area when you aren't digging. I have been reading up on solarization and it is suggested that clear or otherwise transparent plastic actually heats the soil more than black plastic because the sun rays can penetrate through the clear to warm the soil.

Emilyp

Well, 55 and rainy today. Feeling very PNW like here in Wisconsin this Christmas. I don't think I have ever enjoyed my holiday tea to the sound of rain pattering on the roof before! My husband asked me if I wanted him to till up a new garden bed in the back yard yesterday. No snow in sight or in the forecast. The last time I remember a winter this mild was 40 years ago, I was 5.

calico20hill

Emilyp Here in the PNW it was up to almost 50 and is now back down to 40 and raining. If we were up in the CascadesMountains it might get a bit of snow tonight but not down here at the north end of the WIllamete Valley. It is sittingat 40 and raining now. No excitement from the weather ..

KitCMC

Emilyp did you take him up on his offer?! It’s certainly strange to have rain in December! We keep saying what a huge snowstorm this would have been. I’m going to tuck in a few bulbs that didn’t make it into the ground this fall.

Emilyp

KitCMC Nah, too wet out there. Maybe tomorrow 😄

Teddahlia

Here in Oregon City the 10 day forecast has us plus or minus a couple of degrees from 50F. Accuweather endeavors to predict further into the future and the streak may break on January 23rd when it will get colder. In some winters the Canadian arctic weather sags down to include us. Not this year so far. Below zero has occurred only once in Portland at that was in 1888 at -2. A modern day record was 6F in 1967 and Margaret tells stories of feet of snow and ice on top of the snow that her younger brothers could walk on. I missed that weather as I was in Walla Walla to visit my old neighborhood during the holiday break from college. It was 3 below 0 there and a foot or so of snow. I stayed at our next door neighbors house(my parents left Walla Walla in 1965) and slept on the floor in a sleeping bag.

calico20hill

Ted, I remember that winter! I couldn't stand the idea of staying on the farm for 2 weeks break from my college life so I took the train back from Chehalis to Pullman and stayed at our residence the rest of the holiday., I remember coming home to everything covered in snow with a strong icy crust on it! So wieird to think we shared the same space and didn't meet each other for so long afterward. But we remember the same snow storm and deep cold!

AKWindWatcher

Lots of snow here. That pile is 12 x 20 x 12 ish. In the summer that’s where a lot of my dahlias go.

Emilyp

AKWindWatcher
Beautiful Erika! Now that is more like it! The kids said it feels like Christmas here, as long as you don't look out the window 🙂

Teddahlia

Oregon City: We may set a record high today as 57F is forecast. At 6:30Am when I took the dogs out , it was 50F.
Record low for yesterday was 14F and I am happy with the warm weather. .

calico20hill

You have us beat. Only 47 at our house but the local weather station says 51. It is probably warmer down by the Columbia River. I wonder how warm it will get today....Clouds are moving rapidly past us.

MIDahlias

Birds are singing, dogs are rolling on the wet ground (after getting baths two days ago)
and I'm wearing a sweatshirt digging up the rest of my dahlias. SE MI heat wave. December 29th, 2023

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