Weather 2008

[Ulla Hansson]

Hi Shelagh.   Very little snow this winter, but a whole lot of rain. Last week we have snow and frost. I wonder how mine Hellebores and Hepaticas looks when the snow melt away. They was in flowering.
Ulla

[Armin]

Some pics from this morning

1.+ 2.  very early
3.        one hour later

Gerd

Gerd,
I guess it was the first snow fall this winter in Solingen?
Or shall I say this spring?

[Gerdk]

Yes Armin, the first time, indeed.

Our local blackbirds are shocked - they never saw a blanket of snow before!

I don`t know how to post: Is this message ' wildlife ' or ' weather '? 

Gerd

[Armin]

Hello Kristl,
you can proudly say you have a "real" winter with dry frost.
Don't you enjoy any winter sports - skiing, skating ect.?

Overseas here the wheather is so lousy. Christmas was "green" and Easter "white".  
My neigbour has a beautiful Magnolia stellata already full in flower - the frost & snow from last two nights turned the flowers from white into wilted brown.

Hallo Gerd,
I can understand the blackbirds - their courtship has been distracted

[johanneshoeller]

I am down!
Due to the weather conditions here with warm and now cold weather and snow the nature runs riot!
Today 2-3 mice have eaten more than 70 (maybe 100) strong buds of my Cypripediums! I am crying! 
They ate all Crocus, most Helleborus, Galanthus, Hepatica, Fritillaria,...Only the Trilliums have survived at that place.

[Maggi Young]

Hans!  What a catastrophe! You need a BIG, hungry cat!

[Armin]

Hans,
what a disaster  :'(

[Hagen Engelmann]

Easter in East Germany, much sun and  more snow than Christmas!

[Iturraran]

More than a month ago our garden looked full of flowers, just like plain Spring, with bees busy with lots of flowers to work at, visitors wearing t-shirts, etc... Since we entered 'real Spring' we're back to the Winter we were spared of this year, with high icy cccccold winds and lots of hail... 

[Iturraran]

Hans,

I am very sorry for your loss. The mice which ate your plants, were they common house mice?. Were your  plants were kept in a greenhouse, or growing in the open ground?.
Since quite a few years we have a very serious, HUGE problem with gophers eating everything eatable (even plastic!) underground. We cannot use chemicals, and plating in cages did not deter these hungry beasts. 

[johanneshoeller]

Jose,
I think I have not lost the Cyps becauce the mice ate only the buds and not the rhizomes. Some will flower the next year again - I hope so
The Cyps were outside in my garden (Alpinum). The plants in my greenhouses or around were not eaten, There is only a part of my garden with a total destruction of the areal parts of plants. I have seen only 2 eating mice and 2 dead mice. I think they were Haselmäuse (Muscardinus avellanarius) which eat buds, seed, cobnuts and insects. 5 years ago we had in late spring and summer a plague of mice with thousands of mive but with no destruction in the garden!
I hope I can enjoy some Cyps this year and  can show pics you again.

[Iturraran]

My first Cypripedium flowering ever is occuring right now, with a small pot of C. 'Gisella' (I guess one of the commonest kinds?) with two flower spikes. I was thinking about risking planting her in the open ground, but with these nasty gophers... 

[Casalima]

Great to see you here José!!
I'm not sure you really mean gophers, unless they are some strange Basque variety escaped from America ...  I thought maybe squirrels, but they wouldn't eat things underground, I don't think ... hmmmm

um abraço

[Iturraran]

Hi Chloe!,

I don't know if gopher is the right name. They are rodents which live underground at all times, building extensive galleries and nests, eating huge quantities of roots, bulbs and whatever they find pallatable.
In our garden we have to deal with other serious 'pests' such as wildboards, rabbits and red deer, but I assure you these rodents are worst of all!

[Armin]

Hagen,

that's true - more snow than on christmas.

This easter monday morning started with promising blue sky and sunshine until noon time and I thought the bad whether is already over.
Mentally I had just stopped deploring some frost & ice victims.

But I got shocked - snowfall again ! Just 1/2hr ago