BEHOLD, BEAUTIFUL DAHLIAS and daylilies during dreary damp December days — how delightful! That is absolutely correct!
Just this week, while I was deadheading radiant roses at a client’s garden above Cline Spit, there they were, daylilies in bloom. But then later, and most shockingly, here were dahlias in a garden at more than 800 feet in elevation.
And that was the third separate garden that had dahlias in bloom.
Certainly for me and my 29½ years out here on the wonderfully mild, lovely Olympic Peninsula, this is a first by far.
I have gladiolus blooming, lavender in full bloom and lovely blue hydrangeas in flower at four different gardens as well.
As I sit here writing this column, I looked up the 10-day forecast extending past Christmas. Not a single projected low night temperature even in the 30s. That is correct, 40-degree nights for our low temperatures for the next 10 days.
So I guess to all our plants, trees, bushes, shrubs, vines, orchards and spring bulbs, “Merry Christmas.” What a great Christmas gift of wonderfully mild, March/April-like weather.
No cold lumps of winter coal for your botanicals. But is this weather really a perfectly wrapped present?
For you it may be — but this is not about you.
A good share of your own, and most other people’s, ornamental yards is the fact they are planted on a premise of frost.
Your springtime bulbs need it to stay on their labeled time of bloom.
First, they require a formula of sufficient weeks of dark, complete darkness around the bulb (it’s dark buried in the dirt).
Second, they need 12 to 18 cumulative weeks of temperatures of 35 to 45 degrees in order to grow and then to flower.
We are approaching this threshold here on the Peninsula in the beginning of the new year.
Bulbs growing out of the ground can be very susceptible to severe cold damage when this warm weather will most likely convert back to “normal.”
So, now would be a great time to buy one of those perfect garden gifts I mentioned a few weeks ago and have a delivery of topsoil or mulch — or both — dropped off, like me.
Do as I am and “top-dress” your most likely emerging spring bulbs, but do so this month, before they become too tall or the freezing cold kicks them.
Now as to these dahlias and other perennials I have either in bloom or yet to be froze-down, wait for the cold!
That’s right, I will not cut these down or trim until they really do experience a hard frost.
All pruning is stimulating, and that is the last thing I want to do to my perennials as they are tricked into believing this is the end of March.
Same thing for your fruit trees, some of which may still have leaves on.
Wait, although gardening books say now is the time. Let us wait a few more weeks and see if we first get some frost.
And, of course, weeds are now a Grinch’s gift for the holidays. I hate to inform you of this, but our great, mild weather of late is the best stocking stuffer for weeds and their seed.
So, get those little gremlins before they become a real holiday buster.
I do hope everyone is going to have a great Christmas.
To you and yours, please stay well.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays to each and every one of you!
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Andrew May is a freelance writer and ornamental horticulturist who dreams of having Clallam and Jefferson counties nationally recognized as “Flower Peninsula USA.” Send him questions c/o Peninsula Daily News, P.O. Box 1330, Port Angeles, WA 98362, or email news@peninsuladailynews.com (subject line: Andrew May).
