Author Topic: Overly warm winter, a double-edged sword?  (Read 626 times)

Plantinyum

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1418
    • Bulgaria , near Sofia city , planting zone 7
    • View Profile
Overly warm winter, a double-edged sword?
« on: January 18, 2023, 06:29:05 PM »
This winter up to this date is probably the warmest winter that i remember. Lowest temp we had was minus 7C, 95 percent of the time weve been frost free, cant even talk about a frozen ground/soil, which we shouldve had till now. The warm temps are deffinitely helping with the zone pushing part+ its very easy to keep my greenhouse sufficiently warm.
On the other part i did spot some worying singhs yesterday, blueberries along with my almond tree are starting to show singhs of waking up, a slight bud swell, which should have naturally happened in middle to late march. 
As much as i love the warmth and being able to do activities outside , i hope the weather normalizes and gets colder or else plants will have a ruff spring start...


W.

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 647
    • United States, Alabama, 7b
    • View Profile
Re: Overly warm winter, a double-edged sword?
« Reply #1 on: January 19, 2023, 02:34:04 AM »
In my part of the US, we had a bitter, record-breaking cold spell around Christmas. Temperatures were as low as 2°F (I think that is about -15°C), and we did not get above freezing for 90 hours. We had not had a cold snap like that for thirty years. Since that time, temperatures have fluctuated between average and above average spells. All the native plants in my area are unaffected by such cycles, but there are some non-native ornamentals which have shown signs of stirring from dormancy. It would be a bigger problem for me if my fruiting plants were acting that way and the way yours are. Unfortunately, short of protecting plants if they come out of dormancy, there is nothing you can do to push them back into dormancy.

Plantinyum

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1418
    • Bulgaria , near Sofia city , planting zone 7
    • View Profile
Re: Overly warm winter, a double-edged sword?
« Reply #2 on: January 19, 2023, 03:03:58 AM »
W.- Thats quite cold ! Negative 15 C is our usual lowest temp in winter too. Weather people are claiming that our winters are getting milder, but more pronounced and cold at their end, which will be a problem with plants that tend to wake up early. I hope that my plants in general hold their horses until march.
One interesting thing about early bloomers is, i read that in our northern parts of the country, fruit growers are removing their apricot plantings. The reason being that most varieties have started to wake up too early and were prone to late freeses that kill the flowers. Nothing can be done in such cases...
« Last Edit: January 19, 2023, 03:07:09 AM by Plantinyum »

Aiptasia904

  • Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 70
    • Orange Park
    • View Profile
Re: Overly warm winter, a double-edged sword?
« Reply #3 on: March 11, 2023, 09:27:30 AM »
Yep, the week long December chill was brutal in North Florida. I had to move several potted plants inside into my workshop and my more temperate plants took a lot of cold damage. Pineapple, dragon fruit, plum, citrus and apple trees all took SOME cold damage. Nothing that they can't recover from though. I think my dragon fruit took the most damage.

The other problem we've had with an otherwise-warm winter is that it confuses a lot of plants into flowering too early. My apple trees are bad for that and flowered early, then got hit with a cold frost which wipes out the flowers and you lose the crop for the season. I hate it when that happens.

Plantinyum

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1418
    • Bulgaria , near Sofia city , planting zone 7
    • View Profile
Re: Overly warm winter, a double-edged sword?
« Reply #4 on: March 12, 2023, 06:26:48 PM »
Aiptasia904, our winter this year was just a subzero week in february, got down to minus 12 C , otherwise the rest of the period was overly warm.  My trees are just now starting to wake up and swell buds, stonefruit being the first to do this, as usual. My arguta kiwi vines are also waking up , which i thought is a little strange but i dont really know at which time they woke up last year so ...
And yes , the waking up too early is kinda the essence of the problem, with those warm spells/periods trough winter.
I should probably start to write down dates of flowering for my trees ,so i at least have some data to compare from year to year. Cant really remember anything regarding flowering periods from last year lol....