Floods, tornadoes and such are definitely bad weather news. The pictures and stories about these are terrible.
In my corner of the Ozarks, these events are not happening. There is another, more silent disaster threatening.
Now, I am not a winter enthusiast. Snow is nice out the window from a warm room. Cold is to be avoided whenever possible.
That means our recent warm temperatures have felt nice. Walking and working outside without heavy coats on is great. Even in winter gardens need things done.
However, I would forgo this pleasure to stop the approaching ecological disaster.
Necessary Cold
Plants around here expect cold weather to last until March. They sit tight waiting for warm weather to announce the spring growing season. Warm weather like the last few weeks.
Greeting the New Year were wayside speedwell flowers spread across part of the yard. These bloom during any warm spell all winter.
The daffodils and iris have started to grow over a month early. Both can take a lot of cold, but not common February temperatures.
Slippery elm trees are almost in bloom as are several maples, a month early. Flowers don’t survive really cold temperatures.
Many of the usual spring plants around the yard such as plantains, shepherd’s purse and white avens are looking like spring is coming soon. That does not bode well for the many spring ephemerals such as bloodroot and trillium.
Many plants are annuals. If they sprout now and get killed by cold before seeding, many will not come up again.
Trees with frozen flowers produce no fruit. Two of the last three years have seen few pawpaws for this reason.
Floods and tornadoes affect people as well as plants so these get bad weather news coverage. But the silent disaster of warm winter temperatures for weeks is bad too.