March Weather

[Ann B.]

Okay, that does it...

I can't take any more of this!

They aren't listing any lows under the mid 40's forecasted for the next two weeks, and it rarely frosts after Mar. 15, SO...

I will play it smart and not totally remove the plastic on the porch, but plants are starting to go OUTSIDE where they can bask in the sun, and I can turn on the sprinklers.

It's 75 degrees and going to be 77 degrees tomorrow.

Spring? I think it is here already. Hopefully, it will start moving its way up north.

So, my northern Guys & Gals, please, please do not send any cold fronts to me for the next month, okay?

[Ann B.]

It is 75 degrees this morning and the humidity is 71%. It's supposed to get up to 81 degrees. It is blowing hard at times, but not as hard as yesterday.

This is about 10 degrees above average for us, but the forcecasters tell us that we do have some more average weather days in store for us.

[3girls]

It's supposed to hit near 80 today and be freezing tomorrow. The only thing that is really growing are the wild onions that plague me. They really are a nuisance. Nothing for it but to keep chopping down the foliage and over the years, perhaps they will give up and die.

Some daffs are up, I saw a tiny bit of daylily being brave, and of course the garlic is up. But the wild onions are growing. SIGH

I don't even have any seeds started yet. Oh, well, getting done what I can, when I can. Been painting trim before it is put up. There is LOTS and LOTS of trim.

[sue salley]

Sandi, I have bunches and bunches of green onions in my front flower bed. It is all over the hardy cyclamen I put there last fall. I am going to try painting it with weed killer. I plan to use a small paint brush so I won't get any on the good plants. I'll let you know how this works.
It has been in the 70's here this week but it is raining now and supposed to turn cold again tomorrow. I am hopeful that warm weather will soon be here to stay.
The daffodils and crocus have been beautiful this year. Today I noticed the Bradford Pears are starting to bloom.We have a lot here and they are beautiful. Also saw some star magnolias and tulip magnolias in bloom. Spring is finally here, hope it stays a while.

[Ann B.]

It's going to get COLD here tonight. I buckled up the porch and the greenhouse.

They've been saying 41 degrees F., but now they are saying 39. I have seen frost at 39, so decided I'd better get things ready so they won't get set back.

I see another cold front forecasted for March 24, so I guess the plastic will stay for another few weeks.

Gee! I would would like to remove it, though...

[Rebecca]

March is going to be it's usually stubborn self here as well!

Weather for Lebanon, IN
37°F
Clear
Wind: SW at 7 mph
Humidity: 57%

Tue
Mostly Sunny
42° | 24°

Wed
Mostly Sunny
48° | 31°

Thu
Chance of Rain
43° | 28°

Fri
Mostly Sunny
40° | 21°

A bit of a warm-up beginning Saturday with a low of 29, then percipitation possible beginning Sunday through Tuesday with lows in the mid 30's.

Well, I guess since March more or less came in like a lamb, it will have to go out like a lion.


Rebecca

[3girls]

Good grief! It was snowing this morning when I got up! At the same time, the Weatherbug was issuing a "nonprecipitating advisory". Huh? Whatever that means.

Now, at 9:30 am, the wind is blowing, snow gone. Sure is spring, isn't it? It never pays to get in too big a hurry in the spring. Those average last frost days are real.

We are talking two acres of those miserable onions. They grow through layers of cardboard, mulch, etc. They multiply like rabbits, seed like crazy. Fortunately, they grow, bloom, and die back. They come back briefly in the fall, and then return with a vengeance in the next spring. One year, we dug every bed down 10" or more, pulled out every bulb we could. Didn't phase them. Even if the weed killer works, they cover too much ground. Argh-h-h-h.

[Dazed_Lily]

Sandi- Whacky weather, huh ?! We have high highs but still have low lows. I'll know we are heading in the right direction when the lows get higher. Regarding your wild onion, I read the following in this weekend's garden almanac. I don't know if you eschew(That word just popped into my head) chemicals but here it is:

In the lawn -- It's still too early to fertilize, unless you like to mow. And some people do. I have to admit I love the early-green lawns. But I don't have one.
What I do have are the usual early-season weed suspects: wild onion, wild garlic and star of Bethlehem. These coarse blades growing from underground bulbs are pesky. You can pull up the plants to get rid of them. Or, if you want to use a chemical, you may want to try Weed Free Zone or Speed Zone this year, Upham says.
They contain carfentrazone, which has recently been found to attack all three weeds. A spreader-sticker will make the spray more effective, and some of the products already have the spread sticker mixed in. These same chemicals are good to use on dandelions as well.
Other herbicides also are labeled for wild onion and wild garlic.

[sue salley]

Sandi. I guess 2 acres would be too much for a paint brush! I tried digging these out but it just seemed to make them multiply faster than before. I got some weed killer the other day but now I have to wait for it to get warm again.

[Dazed_Lily]

http://www.wunderground.com/US/KS/Wichita.html

Kinda looks like Rebecca's weather although if it moves from west to east it will be her weather soon ! I guess more of the same.

For us, this looks to be our winter. We have been so spoiled with warm temps. I had to rewrap the coldframe last night and will have to curtail my plant buying exuberance--bought Iceburg rose and Bowl of Beauty Peony so far. I'm kind of glad we will have some weather to force me to work indoors--have to start seeds. Also, still have some post moving uppacking/sorting to do. And, those daylilies and lilies in the garage need attention again. Those lilies scare me; I think they will want to bloom very soon. How do they do all that without light ?
:)

[Rebecca]

Yuck! I just had to go look and if Cat is right and I end up getting what she is (a few days later) then March will be going out like a lion. Bummer; I am soo sick of cold weather!

I DID see some of the Liliums poking through so the soil is still managing to warm up in spite of all the cold nights, so there's hope!


Rebecca

[Dazed_Lily]

Great Googly Moogly !
Accuweather is saying 3-6 inches of snow on Monday and our local weather is showing 19 degrees Tuesday night. Winter has arrived ! Not sure about that snow thing ; will keep checking local stations. Might have to work from home Monday; kewl!

[Rebecca]

We have a "Winter Storm Advisory", isn't that wondermous. NOT! Snow will begin around 1 AM and end around 5 PM with accumulation expected to be between 4 and 7-inches. I am so happy that I don't have to be out driving in it! But I feel for all the comuters headed to work in the morning; what a mess that is going to be and we haven't had enough snow this winter for folks to have developed any smart driving tactics for driving in it. There will be a lit of slide offs and acidents I am sure, hopefully none will be serious.

Garden wise, most of what I have up will not be affected too badly, some of the Daffodils might not be too happy and some bloom will be lost on the earlier varieies. The snow crocus will be covered and probably smashed since this is supposed to be a wet heavy snow. The Giant Crocus haven't set buds yet, so they will be okay. None of my trees or shrubs have budded, except the Flowering Almond and it is still rather tight so it should be okay too. The evergreen and semi-evergreen daylilies will be knocked back some, but they'll bounce right back and the dormants that are up will get some brown edges but will quickly grow out of it. The only plants I am really concerned about are the small seedlings over in the other bed, they've had it rough all winter, the only saving grace for them may be the creeping weeds that have inundated the beds and giving some cover/protection to a good many of the smaller seedlings. I'm trying to look at it as nature's last chance to cull the weaklings from the crop and open space for new seedlings. That's one of the reaason's I don't mulch my seedling beds as it takes really hardy, tough plants to make it through the winter.

The good part of all this snow will be the added moisture right as the weather warms and new growth really gets under way. Timely early spring moisture, be it from snow or rain always seems to give the plants a boost and they are better able to get through a tough summer.

Guess I've just seen too many winters to really worry about the plants. The strong always survive whatever nature dishes out ourside of catastrophic weather events, and some plants even come through those.



Rebecca

[Ann B.]

Okay, okay....

I tend to 'baby' some of my plants. Not all, just some, and it appears that this weekend, I will have to baby a few subtropicals.

The amaryllis that are outside in the ground will be covered with a comforter. The ones in the ground will be covered with frost cloth.

The brugs will be covered with frost cloth, and so will the Thunbergia Battiscombie.

I haven't taken the plastic off the porch, so it will be buckled back down. I learned a long time ago not to depend on no frost until after the first week of April.

Sounds like this cold front is a bitter, bitter one and natures way of saying, "Hey, winter ain't over yet!"

Most of the bad storms are passing us by on the north. We could actually use some more rain and have a shortage of 5" already this month. I surely hope that does not mean that hurricane season will make up for the loss of heavy March rains (floods).

[sue salley]

The first day of spring was lovely here in NE Tn. I ent to bed this morning when I came home from work and woke up to big fluffy snow flakes. It smowed most of the day tho it didn't stick much. It is really slushy. It will be a mess if it freezes tonight. Hopefully it won't. Cathy did you get your called for snow. We were only supposed to have a chance of rain.
That is how spring goes isn't it?

[Dazed_Lily]

The weatherman was all wet. Wichita did not get snow; we did get much needed rain however. Parts of northwest Kansas got up to 10 inches of snow and many motorists had to stop at motels in that area. It's interesting that on I-70 which runs through to Denver, they have gates on the ramps to the interstate that they close to keep motorists off the interstate. I never knew of such a thing.
But back here in Wichita, it's wet and we had a light dusting of snow this morning. It is supposed to be 63 on Sunday !

[Rebecca]

Thankfully, our forecast was updated during the night as this front seems to be pettering out somewhat and we, or at least I didn't get the amount of snow previously predicted. Looks like 2, maybe 3 inches of compressed wet stuff. South of me and in the more southern parts of the state they did get more, but I don't think it was the (up to)10-inches previously predicted.

Of course this is not to say the snow fall we did get hasn't caused problems. Lots of slid-offs on the I-70 E/W and some in all the other usual places where people just don't know how to slow down for the road conditions. Funny how a good many of these vehicals are SUV's and other 4-wheel drives. Dumb. Temps in the 40's next three days so this snow won't last long at all.

I'm glad we didn't get what was originally predicted and I really hope this is the last of winter for a good 8 to 9 months! I need to see green! Green grass, green leaves on the trees and green foliage on all the perennials, annuals and others. Brown is NOT my favorite color!

Now if 'Baby', my senior citizen cat would just show up! Don't know where she stayed last night, but it wasn't inside and I haven't seen tracks anywhere. Fortunately I do have two shelters out back she can (and does) get into to stay warm and dry.

At least the snow hides the torn-up street in front of my place!


Rebecca

[Ann B.]

Oh, Shux!

I've been watching the forecast for days now, and it hasn't changed much.

It's hard to believe, but accuweather forecast 34 degrees for tonight (real feel of 27?), weather.com forecasts 38 and so does our local weather. Looks like we'll be having a couple of nights of cold, so I'll be going outside in a bit to start covering up the brugs, the Thunbergia Battiscombie, as well as putting some plants in the old gh and the porch. Then it's buckle down time on the plastic on the porch.

The hard part is that even though it is cold in the mornings when I leave for work, it gets awfully hot during the day with the sun bearing down on the old gh when it is shut up.

Oh, well... I was glad that I stayed home today and got some rest and peaceful quiet. Well, that is until the UPS guy rang the door bell, the chihuahua decided to bark like crazy and the guy hollered, it's by the back door.

When I opened it, I discovered a letter from HP saying that a laptop turned up missing with info regarding my retirement funds, so now I am being well informed about identity theft and precautions to take. Go figure.... Like I needed to hear about more paperwork to do, huh?

If it's not one thing, it's another...

[sue salley]

It is race weekend here in Bristol. That usually means bad weather. They are calling for rain turning to snow tonight and tomorrow. Cold all weekend. The sun was out earlier and it felt warm. Dog got a good walk. We checked on passiflora, not up yet. Peoney starting up, primroses starting to bloom. Being a Jack Russell she doesn't stand still long enough to smell the flowers but that little busy nose is everywhere else.

[Ann B.]

All of the heavy rains went to the north of us, so I have starting the sprinklers.

Our temps only went down to the upper 30's the last couple of night, but still, a few plants were nipped by frost. I covered what I could and left them covered for 2 days. This morning, I removed the covers and all look just fine.

They'll have to get covered again tonight and tomorrow night. It's easier on the weekend because I'm here to remove the covers during the day. I'll probably leave them covered Monday, and that should be the end to our chance of frost bite. The forecast calls for lows in the 50s after that.

In the meantime, it is cool outside, so I hope to get plenty of weeding done, and it is time for fertilizer.

[Rebecca]

NCAA Finale Four Here this week end, so we get bad weather and more silly snow, tomorrow I think, or is that today?? I can't keep up with it anymore.

Clouds and Sun have been playing peek-a-boo- for the last hour and it's been getting really dark when the sun is behind the clouds. I haven't looked, but these are probably snow/rain clouds. I don't think we need anymore moisture right now!

Down to mid 20's again tonight, yesterday's snow cover is gone so the plants will have to just tough it out.I am so desperatly ready for warm weather!


Rebecca

[Ann B.]

Our night time temps are finally where they should be, back in the lower 50's.

The only problem is that the highs are going to go up again.

Most of my tropical hibiscus are back outside. All of the non-blooming amaryllis are back out. A few have scapes, but that is okay. They aren't the named ones or at least they aren't the ones that I only have a few of...

The plastic is coming off, one section at a time. The water sprinklers are running like crazy and the yard is filled with weeds that need to be mowed.

This has been one crazy winter, and I am praying real hard for an easier spring, summer and fall.

It's definitely time to think about planting more seeds, and I still have some bargain basement bulbs to get into the gardens and hopefully fill in some bare spots where shade used to be.

Happy Spring! It is here and hopefully on the way upward to your zone soon.

[sue salley]

Ann, The race fans have gone and things return to normal around here, even the weather. It snowed all weekend. I felt sorry for all those poor campers. Temps are still only supposed to be in the 50's til the weekend then finally up to 70. I can't wait. I have lots of bulbs and plants to plants and bunches of seeds to start, thanks to Cathy and Rebeccca. The generosity of my friends here at Landspro is overwhelming.