Low of 30? We bottomed out at 24 on Friday AM, with a 25 MPH north wind and a dew-point of 10F. Everything but the trees and the yard grass had a definite droop to it, and the remaining daffodils were way past “pining for the fjords.” The tulips hung their heads, and the roses looked as if they’d been given really bad news about their lottery ticket. (Aside from Gertrude Jekyll, that is. That rose is scary-hardy.)
Saturday morning was a mere 30, and only for an hour at most. However, the damage has been done. The tree-wisteria look rather worse for wear, the really new growth on the roses is a loss, and the flowering trees are starting to dump petals and some leaves. It’s not quite as bad as 2011, when the wind and cold dang near killed the hawthorn tree and left the roses looking as if they had jerky on their canes instead of leaves, but it’s going to be bad.
What really caused the damage was the previous week’s high temps. If they had been in the 60s, which is seasonal average, the plants would not have been as far along or as full of sap. Alas, it was in the 80s. We went from 80 to 25 in 11 hours. That’s kinda rough on living things, especially those that can’t move to shelter.
As I walked on Saturday morning, I noticed that all the daffodils in the area were in the process of collapsing. Some of the tulips looked puny. Others, especially some of the fancy feather and double tulips, seemed to have held on. A few of the flowering shrubs also looked sickly, although that might have been because they open at dawn, and it was still a little before sunrise.
When we moved to RedQuarters several decades ago, it was a local tradition that you always got a freeze or snow to flatten the daffodils just before Easter. It wasn’t really Holy Week without a snow of some kind. That’s been absent for the past few years, but we certainly got the flower-killer this year.
We’re supposed to be back in the 80s this week. With no rain. That’s what’s starting to chew a little in the back of my mind. I really, really do not want to repeat 2011’s weather pattern. That was the lowest rainfall recorded since record keeping began in this area. Yes, worse than the ’30s and ’50s. I’d just as soon not see that again for a while, thank you.
Cat Rotator's Quarterly 
Even humans get used to the warmer weather and get mentally hit hard when the should-be-expected cold comes back.
Oh yes, I felt the cold more this morning because of more spring-like weather earlier. đŸ˜‰
We had our spring-like weather for a day or so last week. Late February was actually warmer than early April; the joys of the Intermountain West. We’re not desert, but it’s not far.
We’re supposed to see 70 by next weekend. Yippee! (If it happens.)
Yep, my coral honeysuckle looks like it was murdered… half the blooms are on the ground.
I’m trying to wrap my mind around a late frost wiping out a hawthorn tree’s blooms.
Lots of years, those were all we had left to decorate the graves on Memorial Day.
It was the combination of 20F air temperatures, terribly dry air, and a day of screaming north wind. It turned the plants into jerky, they freeze-dried so badly.