Greetings,

Last week I came out to my terrace and saw the extremely weird case of having my hawthorn flowering right in the middle of this winter. This I can only associated to the fact the fact that this has been an unusual "hot" winter. We are in the middle of January and temperatures, where I live, hasn´t drop below the 0 ºC degrees no more than maybe three times in the night. Also, last December we had temperatures hovering the 20 ºC degrees threshold. This is absolutely extraordinary and I assume it has upsetted my trees. I can only find one explanation so far, and that is that the weather phenomena "El Niño" seems to be behaving or manifesting extremely hard this year. So, have anyone of you experimented this same issue? Have any of your trees been sprouting this winter? I attached images of my hawthorn...

Thanks in advance,

Alain

My Prunus mume Japanese Flowering Apricot is in flower now, that is about 6 weeks early. This cold snap will slow things a bit though I think. A friend of mine had the same species in flower in mid December. We had -4C last night, and frost the last few nights. I has a look at my Larches some days ago, and they look as if they might be waking up soon. The winter has been abnormally mild and wet in November and December.
Geoff.

Yup, one of my Azalea's has finished blooming. A maple has seen a bud burst. Here winter has arrived a few days ago. -9 last night. Let's see how the trees respond. Will probably loose some branches, hopefully nog worse.

It IS only January. The coldest month is still to come!

I have a japanese quince that still hasnt dropped its leaves and i font think thats normal either .

Great! Thank you all for sharing your experiences with your trees this winter. I was starting to worry that it was an abnormal phenomena from my side. In any case...

leatherback wrote: Let's see how the trees respond. Will probably loose some branches, hopefully not worse.

LB I´m seeing that you stated that some trees might lose some branches... How is that? Why abnormally elevated temperatures in winter might cause dieback in some branches of our trees?

Thanks in advance,

Alain

I had my pomegranate seedling sending out new buds only to be snowed on about a week later. Maybe it wasn't supposed to be outside :dry:

alainleon1983 wrote: Why abnormally elevated temperatures in winter might cause dieback in some branches of our trees?

I think it's just best to be prepared for branches to die back, although maybe LB had a specific reason in mind.
Ed

alainleon1983 wrote:

leatherback wrote: Let's see how the trees respond. Will probably loose some branches, hopefully not worse.

We went from night time temps of 5-10c, and daytime well above 12c to -9 night / -4 day within a few days. I had plants breaking buds, and all the trees had swelling buds; If a plant comes out of dormancy, which really is cold weather protection, and then gets deep frost, this can cause damage.

Winter finally hit around here, everything's definitely dormant, or dead...

leatherback wrote: Here winter has arrived a few days ago. -9 last night. Let's see how the trees respond... It IS only January. The coldest month is still to come!

Well, I don´t know about that. Right now and for where I live, see the weather forecast for the next 7 days... Those are most certainly not January standard temperatures. As it is now, and after reading your explanation on cold over wakening trees, I don´t know if it would be desirable going back to extreme cold. These temperatures are more likely to be seen in late March or early April.

Oh, and by the way... The image is written in Spanish

Alain