Winterwatch?

Oh dear, Janet, is this in your garden?

Yes Pat, it's my Eucalyptus tree which has 'had' 2 trunks, one about a foot thick at the bottom. The roots were quite thick, it was only planted in 2000 but they grow quickly.

It used to bend at nearly 90 degress when the trunks were thinner, but with the leaves I could see it was giving too much resistance and the trunks no longer bent. It wasn't long before it started to lean, the rain we had the night before probably didn't help, but the roots didn't come out too much. I think it grew too quickly for the roots.

It's been chopped down and dug out now, I have a Eucalyptus niphophila thats been in a pot for a few years now, slower growing, so I will probably put it in the place, I have a big hole in the sky now! That one went in when about 4-5' tall with one years growth on it from a seedling, which should have been OK, so now I know.

I always thought it may be two different trees together, slightly different looking, the wood smells different too.

Resin I did think of that, but it wasn't really worth it and the roots had lifted, so it would have been hit and miss to get it to re-establish.

Coppicing should be done in the 2nd year or it may kill the tree anyway.

The new one is much slower growing, so perhaps will establish a root system able to keep up with the growth, I like them to grow tall! It's a snow gum and should have white bark.

On a brighter note, I had a poppy open today, one of my own crosses. The stem is short, (very), and a new bud has popped open with still green petals.

This message was edited Jan 20, 2007 1:21 AM

You may have discovered a new mini strain of poppy Janet - at least it won't flop all over the place. It is probably short because it hasn't got growing yet.

I've just come back from the community garden on the allotment and it is complete devastation. Our new greenhouse is just a heap of twisted metal. It has blown all the polycarbonate panels away - goodness knows where, and a shed on a neighbouring allotment is completely upside down standing on its roof. The greenhouses on the other end of the plot have lost quite a few panes of glass but are still standing, but they are sheltered by the adjacent houses. There is nothing to filter the wind at our end of the site unfortunately. It might be worth putting a hawthorn hedge in down one side, although we can't have anything higher than 5 ft. It could just do the job even though it would take up some growing space.

That must be disappointing Pat, I had a galvanised steel frame with plastic covering many years ago, the second winter (I think) it twisted, they're not strong enough. That might have been the really strong winds on Jan 1st 1975, I remember the date because I went to Chesterfield to get a colour TV which the local Currys didn't have in stock, so they offered £20 to go fetch one there.

Your polycarbonate panels have probably been picked up by some gleeful gardeners to mend their own greenhouses!

I think that poppy had an early flower last year, not as early as this though. It hasn't made many yet, it might not like the dry slope it's on, it has been very dry these last two years at the usual flowering time.. Still very unusual, I ought to put it somewhere else and look after it, see how it performs. Notice how the pod casing on the second flower is vey long, it's funny that it should have popped open too soon, I wonder what the trigger was.

Well it has snowed at last. There has been snow on the hillside across the valley most of the day and our road has been covered in ice all day where last night's snow partially thawed and then froze. Lots of plants are under dollops of ice too so it is rather a wintry scene. It has been nice and sunny though and thank goodness the wind has died down.

No snow here, though!

Resin

No snow here either, just needed rain.

Dale, You do this just to wind us up don't you. Never mind it is nice to see some colourful plants at this time of the year. Hope you get lots of rain now.

Pat

Hi

An old lilac tree of ours has uprooted but it didn't do any damage, next door lost 2 fence panels and the ellotment at the back of our property had a whole garden shed blown from one end to the other. . Our builders yard is at the back of our garden and its where we garage our vehicles, we have just bought a new car for my eldest daughter and something has blown into it luckily only a slight scratch. We have to keep checking that everything not fastened down is put inside.

All my fuschia's are sprouting in the greenhouse hope any late frosts don't do too much damage. I still have an Autumn basket in flower (cyclamen). My Pansies are looking good.

Regards
Sue

Hi alrac, I have fuchsias that never stopped or really only started late in the greenhouse, one called President George Bartlett was slow to grow from a plug last spring, it had 2 flowers recently and has more buds and all the leaves. The fuchsias next to my south wall are in active growth, with new tip growth and buds making, 2 of Madame Cornelissen full size buds blew off in the wind. They usually die back and most of the stems need to be removed, if they get through winter I will have very tall plants. My Salvia Black and Blue is sprouting too on last year's stems, it's supposed to be tender but I think the hot summer ripened the wood well.

Last night it was -3C in the greenhoue, and only 2C at midday today with sun, the water on the bath tub is frozen fairly deep, not a thin layer which can be tapped and broken. The next few days are going to be much the same, on a good note I have seed which needed germinating in water at 5C so they are going in the garage now.

When the Eucalyptus tree was sawn the top of the smaller trunk fell on part of my Leptospermum, which was at least 8 feet tall and full of flower last year. It was well split on a fork so I thought I would put insulation tape around it and hope, some plants mend that way. I had to manouver a branch of the Acacia while the large trunk was sawn, and yes it fell on the same spot and broke the other stem which hadn't broken on that side, so all I could do was cut the whole lot off. I now have one tall stem going towards the Acacia, a real shame as it's lost most of the growth.

This is the Leptospermum in flower, the part that is now gone.

Hi Wallaby1

It was -3 here too, my bird bath was frozen solid this morning so we put some warm water on to melt it but when I checked it at 2.30 pm it was frozen solid again. There has been a little sun earlier today but the ground has not thawed.

Sorry to hear about Leptospermum hope it sustains the rest of any bad weather we have to come.

Regards
Sue

There has been a clear sky here all day, still have ice on the ground in shaded patches, it feels like it will be much colder tonight. It's usually at least 1 or 2C colder outside than in the greenhouse so it could be a very sharp frost tonight.

I got the seeds in, 8 yesterday and 8 today, I didn't realise I had that many to float on water, a few are for 15C which it is at the back of my kitchen now, the rest at 5C so it should be perfect, if the seed is still viable.

I should pop out and get some fuchsia cuttings before it's dark, someone wants some cuttings and they might not make it!

Light dusting of snow here (only about 1mm), but except in direct sunshine, it hasn't thawed at all through the day. Looks like a hard frost tonight, but tomorrow is supposed to be slightly warmer with the wind picking up from the northeast, bringing sleet showers and a little heat off the North Sea.

Resin

Snowed here today!!!! Not much, but hey apparently its just the start!!
Temps are around -2 or -2 at night...........

Is such a thing possible, heat off the North Sea at this time of year? The winds are coming from the North Sea or North-east tomorrow, my wind direction monitor has been showing that too so I guess that's what brought the cold in the first place.

We are forecast sleet and snow for tomorrow, 4C which it usually is when it snows and clouds coming in will help with night temps, but I missed tonights temps on the forecast. The Waddington forecast says 0C but I think it will be lower.

We are really in zone 9a too, -7C is rare to get here, mostly no lower than -5C but on the very rare occasion it does get to -9C, perhaps once in every few years.

When the country gets the -20C or heavy snow it's usually worse in the southwest, but when are we going to get another low one like that? Well past the due date, 1930 something, 1947, 1963, 1982 (which everyone seems to ignore), next..........

Here's another interesting article about the Gulf Stream: http://www.whoi.edu/institutes/occi/viewArticle.do?id=9986

Sure enough, this morning it is overcast, +4°, and slight rain, with a complete thaw overnight of yesterday's ice.

Resin

I know the sea temperature is usually higher than the land temperature in winter, but heat and North Sea just aren't words that go together in my mind. Brings back memories of trips to the seaside when I was little and we all had to go in the sea no matter what the weather, and only came out when we had turned a nice shade of purple and were covered in goose bumps.

There is more doom and gloom when you hear that the Gulf Stream is slowing down and it is possible that our West Coast won't be bathed with warm water for much longer. It may be that we will get much colder weather in Britain.

Your Leptospermum is lovely Janet (or was). I will put one on my to buy list for this year. You have a very interesting collection of plants. I'm trying to restrict myself to only buy a plant if I have a suitable place to put it, but must say that come the first horticultural show and I'll be buying on impulse again.

We had a lot of snow last night, and then it turned to rain, so it has nearly all gone today except for some sneaky ice patches and a bit of snow under the wall bottoms and the top of the hill. I think we are more like zone 7 here at the foot of the Pennines.

No snow although it's a bit chilly at 2C at the moment.

Here's another map, not based on USDA hardiness zones that I've found to be more accurate although it's a pity it's just allocated into zones and not temperatures http://www.hardyexotics.co.uk/hardyexotics/map.htm# although you can work our your average temperatures from the Met Office website. I find the mapped averages quite interesting if now a little outdated. http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/averages/19712000/mapped.html


Forgotten heavy snow/blizzard conditions ... I remember the 1982 one, we all collected snow into milk bottles for boiling (not in the bottles I may add) as the water pipes froze up what seemed like a very long time, I think it was over a week at least. That was in Staffordshire, fortunately not in Salop where Newport went down to -26.1C or so, although I did hear a while ago that another town in Salop went as far as -27C. In Hampshire it had hardly snowed at all that year. It did snow heavily here in 1990/1991, it was perhaps they only time in my life when a boss ever said, why are you here today? to me (it had stopped snowing for the morning). Poor old cows had a good covering of snow themselves while they were waiting to be milked.

I couldn't tell you what the Leptospermum is called Pat, I got it probably 8 years ago as a plug plant, described as 'double nain', growing to 15" tall suitable for a rockery! I don't mind at all that it has grown tall, but it is a single probably L. scoparium. Many won't survive the cold, I tried a couple of others, double Snow Flurry which died, and I grew another from a plug L. s. Red Damask, it had got to a really good size and flowered well, lovely double red flowers with a black eye. I kept it in the greenhouse and it survived really cold weather there so decided in 2004 to put it in my new bed. It got through the next winter but didn't survive the last very long cold winter, heartbreaking! I grew L. nitidum from seed and it is still flowering in the garden, not many but it's first flowers, 2 of those went in the ground (next to red damask) in 04 as well and were fine. They are scented

http://aolsearch.aol.co.uk/image?query=%27leptospermum+scoparium%27

http://www.anbg.gov.au/leptospermum/leptospermum-nitidum.html

There was still some snow on the ground at 1pm here, the sun was shining but after 2pm turned grey with rain or mushy snow. I broke the ice on the bath tub, it was at least 1/4" thick but melting. It was -3C again in the greenhouse, and 3C at 1pm. The fuchsias are still OK!

Baa in 1982 I lived about 25 miles from where I am now towards the north, we had 3 months of deep snow and frost from January to the end of March. The pipes froze and I had to put a heater on them to thaw, the bath and hand basin outlets froze as the water went out and I had frozen water backing into the bath tub. I remember a face cloth being frozen too! I had no central heating. I don't know what the minimum was but a tractor running on diesel froze up on the road nearby, diesel freezes at -20C and that was in the morning.

Here's a winterwatch from Canada (be sure to check out the links): http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/689627/

This message was edited Feb 8, 2007 1:47 PM

Dusting of snow this morning (about 1cm), but then the wind picked up from the east, turning on the North Sea Heat Effect . . . +4°C and all the snow was gone by afternoon.

Resin

We got a lovely snow fall on sunday and it's been sunny and nice ever since :-) Here's how it looked on Sunday morning :-)

We had 6 inches of snow last night, but it had all fallen off the trees this morning and is thawing fast. It is raining now, so should all be gone again by tomorrow. It did look very pretty. I wonder what has happened to the butterflies and ladybirds that were out last week?

I am snowed in hurrraaaaaa
drinking lots of hot cocoa

More snow.
It is recommended that we stay indoors today

But just across the North Sea (Vesterhavet), here it is 11° today!

Resin

11? nice and comfy then ;o)))
I am enjoying the snow and making lots of sne engle ;o))

Yes, very nice! The bees are busy on the Mahonia flowers today . . .

Resin

the bees are out, a bit early isn`t it?
But sigh… it must feel like spring :o)))

We are a little colder here, the sun can't quite manage to get out, just had a little sloppy shower, like melted hail, but I have some small Narcissus open two days ago, Tete-a-tete I think.

I saw a queen bumble bee around 2 weeks ago when we had some sunshine and hard frosts at night, it was sat on some chickweed but buzzed off.

There's been a female woodpecker I have heard most mornings on the oak tree, I rushed for the camera when I saw it pecking at the hole on the blue tit box but a car came just as I was about to get a shot and scared it off! It is on the Horse Chestnut tree now most mornings tapping away. The tits have been investigating the box the last few days too. The birds think it's spring!

Narcissus are open? Now I am getting quite envious LOL

To bad about the woodpecker hope you get a photo of it. I’ve only seen them twice in all my life, they are not common.
Was thinking about the same just a few day ago, the pigeon (don`t now the correct English name,
Resin what are skovduer named in English?) well, looked as if they were getting ready to nest.
I wonder how the sudden chance of weather affects them.

Davs Zest,

Skovdue = Wood Pigeon. They've been nesting all winter here, had a recently fledged youngster in the garden about 10 days ago.

Resin

Mahonia in flower :-)

One of the bees taking a rest from gathering nectar on it

Helleborus in flower today

Wood Pigeon now I feel stupid LOL, very obvious :o)))

They already had young? Is that normal of is it because the strange weather?
The Mahonia and Helleborus are beautiful, the bee really makes it feel like spring :o))