And.....winter again. Just as ProfessorRoush was hoping to put the seasonal losses behind us, spring whimpered out of the way and let winter's lioness roar back in full bloodlust. We had two very unfortunate anti-garden nights this week; a hard freeze on Monday following a strong north wind that shook the house and then a dusting of snow and another brief dip to freezing temperatures Thursday night last. Only this fake steel rose near my front walk seems to be impervious to the damage.
If you can't bear to look, then turn away quickly, but let me show you what a hard freeze does to asparagus. I looked at these growing, stiffening spears on Sunday and thought about picking them, but decided another couple of days would get me a more filling harvest. Now here they are, limp and broken, their tumescence and potential gelded by an icy maiden. I'm sure this picture is an apt metaphor for some other issue that vexes old gardeners, but I can't recall anything like it at present, just another incidence of déja vu that will come to me later.
What will become of the snow-kissed peonies, like the ones pictured at right? Or the daylilies and young roses, prematurely coaxed by the warming sun into rapid growth and now slapped down for their exuberance? I have hope for the peonies yet, frost-resistant as these sensuous beauties can be, but some were beginning to bud, and I may yet harvest only a crop of small black buttons from the early peonies.
In the two days since the snow, I've re-examined the daylilies and most may recover; leaves wrinkled and a little brown on the edges, but they may recover. ProfessorRoush, however, is retreating for a time back into his COVID-quarantined lair, suckling his thumb in the darkness. I'm tempted, knowing that the lowest forecast temperature for the next 10 days is 47ºF, to uncover the greening strawberries, but I just don't trust Kansas. If I lose the strawberries, I lose all hope, and so I will change the oil in the lawnmower and sweep out the barn, and nurse the surviving onion starts, but I will not offer the strawberries in sacrifice to please the fickle gardening gods. Hear me, Priapos, god of vegetable gardening? You will not get my strawberries!
Yikes, I didn't know asparagus was tender. Something to keep in mind as I was hoping to put in a bed in the next couple of years. Might it still send up new growth?
ReplyDeleteSome of our hardier plants even got bit back by the freeze early in the week, but nothing has been irreparable so far.
I'll let you know if it sends up new growth. I assume it will, but I've never experienced this.
ReplyDeleteDo you still have your yellow bird magnolia? Would love to see her growth!
ReplyDeleteI do. When she leafs out, I'll post a picture...right now, her blooms were hit by the last freeze and for the first time, I don't think I'll see her bloom this year....sadly.
DeleteBr. Placidus; the asparagus did come up and is producing...albeit maybe a little less vigorously than in years past.
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