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

Our first frost was early this morning. Plants now have "cooked spinach" leaves for the most part. It was just frost as opposed to a light frost or a heavy frost. The plants will still be standing but the flowers took a beating. We will continue to dig and it will be nice to verify what we are digging as the floppy flowers with sagging stems will still be there. This is an early frost date for us . I believe we are frosting before Chicago that is forecast for it's first frost tomorrow night.
I posted this picture of a first year waterlily on Facebook. It has fewer florets and they are larger but still cup. About 170 likes so far.

blown_dry

Teddahlia WOW!!

SteveM

Teddahlia I sure do like the form. It will be interesting to see how it scores in the trial gardens and seedling bench.

AndreaB

Teddahlia Oh my. Another stunner 🤩

Bessie

Teddahlia the wonderful photo highlights the blooms from three different angles. Those varied angles, that include a tighter bloom, really shows off the form and colors.

Teddahlia

First year seedlings are frequently not as good as you think. I wonder if the big florets will wilt for example. Will the color continue to be nice? I have dug the clump but have not yet divided it and will be able to see of it makes some tubers. "A picture does not a dahlia make. " and there is a lot that can go wrong.

blown_dry

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

Emilyp

Teddahlia It's sooooo pretty!

Teddahlia

Frost has damaged 99% of the flowers. I picked a sorry looking bouquet as I cannot come to grips with the end of the flower season. Seed pods undamaged and will continue to ripen. One Problem: Two people keep cutting down plants and digging tubers. No seed pods available from those missing plants. Perhaps those people are myself and Margaret.
.

Bouquet from a few weeks ago. Margaret picked some huge seed pods a couple days ago and took some pictures that I will post when she gets around to sharing them from her cell phone to my computer.

calico20hill

Oh Ted, I hear you loud and clear! I cut down the last row this morning . Howard is not too far behind me on digging. What ever are we going to do for color in our lives for all the months until they grow again!? I have amaryllis ordered for winter blooms...they have not arrived yet. Its been years since I used to grow a ton of amaryllis in the winter and now I have the two cats. I will have to grow them in a room that the cats do not access. My cats love to mess with plants and bouquets! I don't heat my greenhouse until about March.

NCDahlia

Looks like I will get the killing frost Thursday going do 26. I have liked the blooms that I did get this year and made sure tags were correct. Was 80 here today so I gave my old 14 year old dog his "winter bath" outside since it will be the last really nice summer like day. Have a lot of nice fall leaves I will post a few pics when I get the chance.

edewitt

Never did end up freezing the next day like I thought a couple of weeks ago so I got some extra time for flowers with the plants that didn't snap in half or lower from the terrible gusts of wind we got. Tonight we're supposed to have our killing frost which was gonna be in the 20's and now has dropped down to 19 degrees and everything's still in the ground. I'm kinda freaking out now.

The ground shouldn't freeze too deep in one evening at that temperature should it?

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.

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.

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.

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

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!

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.

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