Beautiful destruction

 So far the weather of 2021 has been rather unkind.  The initial part of the event was an ice storm and as those go this was not anywhere near the worst of it kind, about 1/4 " of ice was deposited rather evenly on all the exposed limbs and leaves and needles.  This brought down 4 or 5 big limbs but our inspection indicated nothing too severe.  But over night 3-4 inches of nice sticky wet snow blanketed every thing.  And suddenly the amount of limb breakage increased by about a factor of three.  The damage may actually be more extensive depending up which bushes and shrubs bent to the ground recover and straighten.  So far the power has gone out twice, the same 12 houses each time, of which ours is the last of the group because our neighbors get their power from a different direction.  Here's an iced up young pine (P. bungeana) just beginning to collect snow, so this is just the beautiful part.  

Mother nature is messing with us

The fall has been very late such that no frosts yet and very little night time cold, so leaf color changes have barely begun here in the last week of October.  And now it's snowing and trees still have most of their leaves!  Nothing looks sadder than a big leaf magnolia with all its leaves bending under the weight of snow; nothing is sadder than a tree breaking under the weight of snow.  Now this snow will not last long, but it's messing with the nicest part of the fall season, and that's just not nice.  
Only the truly dedicated trick-or-treaters will be out tonight, and we have very few kids of the appropriate age in our hood anyways.  However it was probably a good thing that the dead oak whose crown reached over our roof was taken down before this snow and wind thing.  And we hope nothing else gets damaged too badly.  A few years ago a big wet heavy snow fell around Thanksgiving and as we walked through the neighborhood, you could hear the snapping of Bradford pear trees. 

Friday fabulous foliage - ID of unknown

Welcome to the great midwest. Monday and Tuesday this week the highs were in the 80s (quite summerish 3-4 days ago), right now a sleety snow is falling and there is a good chance of a frost tonight.  Spent yesterday moving tender plants inside.  Our university's arborist stopped by with a leafy twig and asked if TPP could ID it.  Yes, this is part of the service TPP still provides in retirement (experience counts big time).  This was not a tree TPP recognized right off, but it had opposite compound leaves with three leaflets and long pink petioles.  The buds were long and conical covered with imbricate bud scales, so yes, just as you were thinking, very maple like.  A good woody plant key took me straight to Acer, and then on to A. mandshuricum, Manchurian maple.  So both our arboretum and herbarium just gained a new species and a voucher.  This is an ornamental species, just not real well known.  It should turn a nice fall color, if we actually get a fall (as the snow continues to fall).

Monday, Monday

It would have to be a Monday.  It snowed last night about an inch; not enough to bury or hide the blue lawn completely.  And of course it's still cold.  The whole thing is pretty depressing.  Still have lots of leaves to remove from beds and the bases of shrubs and perennials, but don't want to uncover the new shoots too soon.  The delayed spring results in forced inactivity, and that is also sort of depressing.  A series of emails about kapok reminded TPP of the tropics, and how different it is in tropical places & a certain longing for the tropics looms up, and you want to go.  Fortunately this snow is almost gone already, and a 70 high is predicted in just a few days.  Or is it just a setup for another weather disappointment?   No choice but to wait & see.  

Peak blue becoming white

Wow, not only is peak blue late this year, but even then in total defiance of Eostra's influence, peak blue is being whitened.  What a difference a day makes when it comes to weather in these parts.  To the best of our knowledge Peak Blue has never been snowed on before.  It must be because of the French-Canadian is here.  Compare with this image from TPP's most recent peak blue post just one day ago from as close to the same place as is possible.  Mrs. Phactor has declared this downright depressing.

Friday Fabulous Flower - out of sync spring weather & hellebores

Somehow Friday, Sat. & Sunday got away from TPP.  Friday was pretty springy and TPP even planted some parsley seedlings, and luckily put them under some protection.  Saturday was a horrible weather day, starting with sleety rain, that turned to snow, heavy wet snow, and then finally to some substantially heavy snow.  Oh, TPP has seen & experienced much worse, but for this area this was impressive and thankfully brief, but still the storm put a good 6 inches on the ground.  TPP's first thought was swell, this cleanup job can wait a couple of days and warmer weather will remove the snow, but people were coming to din-dins, so sidewalks and drive needed some clearing.  An overwhelmed little snow thrower actually helped move most of the lighter snow that was sitting atop the base of icy slush, that froze once exposed.  Fortunately TPP had some experienced help, a French Canadian guest, who while now living outside the reach of the snow gods, still remembered how to shovel.  Some of the things in bloom will probably have gotten crushed by the heavy precip.  but fully expect the extremely tough hellebores to take this in stride. Although they may be a bit more noddy than usual. One problem with the common hybrid hellebores is that they tend to hold their flowers in a nodding or pendent position and the heavy slush may push them down further.  So here's what hellebores looked like before getting smushed under slush. The cold & snow won't bother them.

Snow & cold avoidance

Erie PA made news for the big snow storm ( 50+") they got for Christmas, but TPP is a native of the upstate NY snow belt and you simply would not believe what can happen.  A long time ago like when TPP was starting college at the SUNY college in Oswego NY, the city got a 104" snow fall in 48 hrs.  When you hear something like that is possible, you go out and buy a week's worth of supplies, and in those days that would have been beer, milk, bread, eggs, Ping-Pong balls, pinochle cards, and not necessarily in that order.  And you parked your car where it could be dug out and was safe from snow plows that don't stop for anything. 
You'd tie an old fishing rod with a flag at the top to the front bumper so people could see you at intersections.  So the news from Erie brought back some memories.  Wow, glad that was when TPP was young.
Right now here in the upper Midwest, a few inches of snow covers the ground, but the snow was followed by a high pressure front that brought along really cold temps. The night time lows are hitting a few degrees below zero, but remember on the goofy temperature scale here in the USA zero is well below freezing, out -4 F is equivalent to -20 C.  The only solution for this kind of weather is avoidance, to leave, and that's what the Phactors are doing.  (You didn't think we'd go to Florida did you?)  Just after Jan. 1st the Phactors are heading for the southern hemisphere, New Zealand to be exact.  And all the really cold weather should happen while we are inverted.  TPP wants to see some Nothofagus, the southern beech, no matter what the scientific name means, in the wild.  It's on his bucket list.

First snow - November 18

November 18 is not really early for snow and this was a slushy nearly rain type of snow that wasn't going to accumulate, but the Phactors got to see plenty of it because it was ahappenin' while errands were being run. Needed the final fixins' for a Caribbean dinner, starting with a rum-based Planter's Punch cocktail and ending with a rum cake. Sounds well rounded doesn't it. Won't bore you with the rest of the menu (what? you like boredom. OK):  Chorizo & shrimp filled lettuce rolls & fried plantains, calaloo soup, Jerk Chicken with a papaya salsa, a black beans & rice side dish with a mango topping.  On the whole quite good & everyone was happy.

Cookies!

Yesterday was National Cookie Day and you just naturally know the Cookie Monster to be the spokes-monster for the celebration. Who else? The Phactors did not consciously decide to celebrate, but making cookies just happened to be the order of the day. First, Mrs. Phactor made corn meal muffins with a cranberry-orange relish filling. One of the best uses of one of the best Thanksgiving leftovers.  Let's see the cookie parade included a dried cranberry-pistachio cookies, cut-out Christmas cookies (an old family recipe), evergreen tree spritz cookies, and sugared nutballs (using pecans -another family recipe). What a load of colorful, cheerful, sugary confections!  Several people will get a share just so they know we were thinking of them and cared. In the past students from a number of foreign countries have helped with the cookie decorations, and when they come from different cultures with different aesthetics, and no preconceived notions about what snowmen (something they may have never seen), or Santas, or wreaths should look like, the outcomes can be quite surprising. The human sweet tooth always prevails in the end, and all get eaten.  Many of them were Thai (colorful), and then Chad and Togo once (interesting designs). 

Yesterday was also our first snowfall of the winter; wet, sticky stuff, but attractive. Note gardeners: shake it off trees and bushes that get bent with the weight.

Snow? Snow! Jon Snow.

Snow is coming everyone says. But it's 40 degrees outside and spring bulbs are poking up everywhere and a bearpaw hellebore is almost in flower. Jon Snow is just a cheap click bait trick that momentarily seemed funny. Although TPP keeps waiting for a GnOPe candidate to propose a great wall to keep whatever Canada has that's dangerous in the Great White North. This might include winter weather, but the approaching front is coming on a diagonal from the southwest, which is where our heavy snows come, but only in a narrow band. Presently some snow would be welcome but not because soil moisture is low but to protect some not well acclimated plants from a sudden cold snap. December was like November, now January is like December and if February turns out to be like March then winter is really getting short.  Maybe that zone 6 plant isn't such a waste of money?  Heck, the grass is still green as well as the Corydalis lutea, a plant that will be one of the 1st to flower in the spring and one of the last to stop in the fall (if we have one). For a plant that seeds itself in everywhere, it's still worth planting in tough places. It's easy to get rid of where unwanted. Notice that no matter what the topic it quickly turns to spring. Last TPP has read the books, so in a manner of speaking he knows about Jon Snow, a favorite character, but the idea that the series has moved beyond the author is a really strange adaptation of rather epic books. Unless (my theory) the author has actually been unable to figure out the ending of his own story so that the subsequent volumes will be books adapted from the TV show. Strangely TPP has to run an errand before a winter storm starts to get a mango, and the nearest ones are probably in southern Florida.  See you around, winter.

What is this concept of snow?

Hah! The Phactors got out of Dodge just ahead of the first real winter weather! It's really hot and humid here, and most people here have never heard of and cannot conceive of snow falling from the sky. The whole idea of being that cold just does not compute and that may be why this can of Imperial (La Cerveza de Costa Rica) tastes so good. At any rate all that snow must be cleaned up and melted before anyone here will entertain any thought of travel home. Do you think any of these people believe in snow? No way! Somehow this just doesn't look like the weather news from home. TPP should say that the transition from tropics to instant winter doesn't actually kill you, but there is nothing good about it at all.

Snow & cold

Well, it is winter so some snow & cold is expected. Yesterday and last night's snowfall only accumulated some 4-5 inches, our first significant snow of this winter season. As par for the course, a big cold air mass, sometimes called a Canadian clipper, pushes down from the north after the front that brought the snow. It's nice that lots of little plants got a nice insulating blanket of snow before the real cold temperatures arrive tonight and tomorrow. It might get down to -4 F (-20 C), and that's enough for some cold challenged plants, and more than enough for a botanist. The reaction to the first snow was very predictable; all manner of activities were canceled, including a 12th night party of some renown, as if this were a blizzard. Presently the roads and all are just fine. The first freezy mixture also exposed all of the terrible drivers out there who need reminders about stopping distances and driving speeds. These morons are quite dangerous. Whenever TPP thinks about snow his thoughts return to Oswego New York, a place that knows snow. Oswego is expecting some lake affect snow, which can fall at the rate of 1-3 inches an hour, and their expected accumulation is some 12-24 inches of snow (30-60 cm), a modest enough amount in the grand scheme of things where they could get 10 times this much snow over the course of the winter, and every now and then, they get a winter's worth of snow in just a few days. However it rarely gets as cold as here in the mid-west although they often have quite a wind chill factor.

Snow snow snow

Western upstate New York is getting some snow, like 77 inches of snow with another foot or two on the way. This is the stuff of lake effect snow storms. These storms pick up moisture as they move across the Great Lakes and then when they reach colder land, it all gets dumped as snow, snow that can fall at the rate of 3 to 5 inches an hour. TPP grew up there and attended college there and personally witnessed a 104" snow fall in 48 hours. Yikes!  What else is there to say. The pictures from the Buffalo region, studies in frozen black and white taken about 60 miles from TPP's childhood home near the shore of Lake Ontario, are familiar reminders of those winter snows, although TPP has not seen that type

of snow for more than 40 years now. TPP has had lake effect snow clog the space between his eyes and his glasses, a real white-out. Lake effect snow sometimes moves in as a wall-like front, one minute no snow is falling, then a few flurries appear, and then a curtain of snow is drawn across the scenery in front of you. TPP got caught about a mile from our campus when one of these snows moved in. Creeping along the road, or where you thought the road was because  nothing was in sight, but it was West Lake Road, so the shore of Lake Ontario was right there to the left, somewhere. And then out of the white a telephone post appeared just feet in front of the center of the hood of the car. Great! To which TPP had to ask, well, does anyone remember if the telephone poles are on the lake side of the road or not?  It seemed important to know. So far out here in the upper Midwest, it's been bitter cold and windy, terrible really, but no snow accumulation of any sort yet. TPP prefers the nostalgia to the real thing.

Cure for winter blues - the tropics

It snowed today, the 13th of November, and rather early for these parts. It technically snowed yesterday too. The novelty of this form of precipitation has worn off already. Saw enough of it growing up in the snow belt of upstate New York to last several lifetimes. One of the great joys, and head aches, of TPP's academic career was developing and instructing a course in rainforest ecology, an out growth of his tropical field research. This year's class is busily getting all their gear packed for their field trip to Costa Rica over Thanksgiving break. While walking to campus in the gently falling snow, TPP was thinking maybe it wouldn't have been such a bad thing to have gone with the class this year.  What the ever-loving-hell is the problem? It's one of the reasons to retire. And yet, here is where TPP is.  Oh, yes, blew all the money on that month long field trip to Tuscany. Nice, but sometimes you just want the tropics. If you readers are curious, or equally desperate, the location from where this image was taken will be disclosed for the right price. You will not regret it. TPP didn't. 

Expected witch-hazel, got more snow instead

Well, isn't this just a fine development?  By this time the witch-hazels should be in bloom and probably the silver maples too. Instead it snowed some more and the forecast is for another week of winter weather at least. Blast that woodchuck! This is not helping TPP teach plant taxonomy and ID at all. You see, things have to flower so that you can identify them using a field manual. Granted, plants are not usually cooperative in this regard, but that's the way of it. Now woody plants usually provide enough material that you can identify them on the basis of winter or leafy twigs if you have the right field guide and if the bun-buns have left you any twigs, but otherwise you need flowers. TPP will be reduced to begging for leftovers at the local florist shoppes. How demeaning! The glasshouse helps and this past week it provided examples of several important families: dogbane, euphorb, mallow, cactus, and dutchman's pipe. But that doesn't help with the local flora. So what is a guy to do? Hmm, let's put a nice beef brisket in the spiced brine to "corn" it (takes about 2 weeks), and maybe make some gumbo to cover all the holidays in view. 

Yes, we have no margaritas

Everyone who knows the Phactors knows that at the end of the day, the Phactors like to sit on their patio, and look at their gardens and enjoy their margaritas.  So what's wrong with this picture?  This is anti-margarita weather for certain!  Nothing about this makes you want a margarita!  And it just keeps piling up. Ah, well, it only makes the margaritas taste better in season.

It's snowing - hard - again!

Winter weather is back at it again. The snow started near the end of our breakfast, and within minutes it was really coming down such that you knew the predicted accumulation of 1-2 inches was going to be an under-estimate.  In a 10 min walk from the coffee shop to campus TPP's broad brimmed hat accumulated about 1/4 inch, so that is an official rate of 1.5 inches per hour.  Not bad for this part of the world where this is really a high rate of snow. Now growing up in the upstate New York's snow belt along the shore of Lake Ontario TPP has seen some epic snow falls. The thing up there is that the snow just doesn't stop; it can go on for hours at a heavy rate.  Back in the 1960s there was a 104 inch (260 cm) snowfall in 48 hours, so that's 2 inches an hour for 2 days, and then it started to drift. And TPP has seen snow falling at 3-4 inches per hour but for shorter periods of time. Such snow falls produce virtual white-outs, and once it was so bad a friend who was a track star ran just ahead of our car so that the driver could see a bit further, and even then it was very slow going. The car was a Corvair, and they just didn't get stuck in snow. Right now it's obvious the university just cannot keep up with the snow; you can't start any earlier than the snow does, and at times it just comes too fast to keep all those sidewalks clear.  Recommend you look back a blog and just soak up the tropical scene.

Any good outcomes of winter cold?

It's been 35 years since the upper midwest has had a winter this cold.  Since December began there have been 20 days (nights) where the temperature has been below zero, and for those of you using a sensible C scale, water freezes at 32 on the F scale, so below zero is more than 32 F below freezing.  As the Phactor wonders how some of his semi-hardy, maybe-not-quite-zone 5 plants will do, a neighbor asked if anything good could come of such cold?  Last winter there may not have been any days with below zero temperatures, and the frequency of really cold winters has been decreasing (yes, as expected if the climate is warming).  Well, among the good possible outcomes might be if the emerald ash borer proves to be not so winter hardy.  Wouldn't it be great if a really cold winter knocked out the population!  Wow, that would be great. Some other insect populations might get reduced for a while too like the Japanese beetle, but all the snow cover this year may insulate those things that overwinter in the ground from the cold.  Same is true for some of the low-growing shrubs and other perennials. Snow is a great insulator.  So all we can do is hope for the best.  For example, the aerial portions of our Vitex are not winter hardy at these temperatures, but the basal portions will survive and resprout, so the dead upper portions must just be pruned off.  The last few mild winters had allowed it to become a 2.5 m tree, so for 2014 it will have to start over. 

How's your weather? Or, don't move that snow drift; it may be my car.

Well, today was another day of terrible weather here in Switzerland.  It was sunny, about 10 C, and we toured a botanical garden to see what spring flowers might be open (bear paw hellebores, hardy cyclamens, snowdrops, forsythia, Iris japonica).  You do understand that TPP is being sympathetic about the severe winter weather gripping the eastern half of the USA (Yes, the Great White North has this weather too, but then this weather is their number one export!).  Why here in Zurich the weather is so severe that only cafes with outside tables on their south side were full of people.  However, the Phactors expect payback.  If all goes well, and that's asking a lot for international air travel these days, especially when the itinerary includes a flight change in Heathrow, we shall be back to Chi-town tomorrow afternoon, and somewhere out in remote parking lot WX, near location pole QQV489, sits a not very large snow drift, and inside is our white Subaru. So if anyone is around those parking coordinates, stop by and help us dig it out! There's some cheese in it for you.

Snow party

What fun!  The season's first significant snowfall threatened to interfere with our Costa Rican dinner and picture party for the rain forest ecology class.  OK, it was actually no contest; winter weather versus free food and drink.  Only one student was unable to attend; some lame excuse about having to pack up and get ready to clear out today after

graduation. TPP's advice was to get her priorities straight, but students don't always listen to you. The troops took a lot of very good pictures, and some pretty funny ones too.  All in all great fun, and out side it snowed, a heavy wet snow that stuck to vegetation and blanketed our garden.  Very pretty.  Very often TPP is asked how to tell a Chamaecyparis from a Thuja.  Well, it's pretty simple really.  Your Chamaecyparis has round ornaments as opposed to oblong ones.  Or something like that because after all it's an ornamental conifer.