For growers and gardeners across central New York we were in dangerous territory the last few days. Wednesday morning Syracuse was 33 and this morning we were 28, just one degree off the record for the day. With all the warm weather the last few weeks trees and plants across the region are in bloom well ahead of schedule. In my yard there is a Magnolia Tree that has already bloomed and is finished for the season. Some lilacs are about to do the same. I was on the radio with garden expert Terry Ettinger last weekend and he told me that in terms of foliage/flowering we are about 2 weeks ahead of schedule.
The problem, as we’ve seen the past few days, is we are still susceptible to frost. The average date for the last frost in Syracuse is April 29 but the last two Mays temperatures have dropped into the mid 30s at the airport in early May which means that outlying areas most certainly touched 32. During those years I know apple growers were on pins and needles as they tried to protect their tender fruit blossoms. In 2005, the low in Syracuse reached 30 on May 13th. The bottom line is we shouldn’t be surprised by the frost the last couple of days.
So while you were working in the yard the last two weekends we hope you stuck to raking, trimming and mowing and resisted the urge to plant anything but hearty plants. There are a couple of rules of thumb I’ve heard. One is to wait until Mother’s Day and the other is to wait until the Oak leaves come out.
Now some loose ends to tie up for April. The cool spell the last couple of days knocked us down and we ended up as the 3rd warmest April on record. And April will end up almost normal for precipitation. We were nearly 2” behind heading into last weekend but over an inch of rain Saturday evening and the steady rain Monday brought us back up.
Some random tidbits….all that snow on the ground in Caribou that I talked about last month has melted and now the flooding is happening. In nearby Fort Kent the St. John River is at a record flood stage. On the opposite side of things, the fire danger is high in the southwest United States. Yesterday afternoon I saw that Pueblo, Colorado had a relative humidity of 4%!
