Snow the week of Christmas followed by 14 days of warm weather
has confused native
plants. When temperatures hit 70 and hold, they think it’s
spring.

“I was out hiking and saw some native azaleas with big buds. And
some cherry trees
and swamp maples around Athens are showing bloom,” said Wayne
McLaurin, a
horticulturist with the University of Georgia Extension
Service.

“Some shrubs and trees are going to bloom in this extended warm
weather,” he said.
“And if the temperature drops, it will kill many of the buds.”

Many homeowners are seeing their bulbs, like daffodils,
hyacinths and crocus, popping
up.

“The bulbs are coming up, but they can withstand a lot of cold,”
McLaurin said. “The
best thing you can do for things that are coming up is to mulch
them.”

He suggests using leaves you have around your yard to mulch the
plants well.

“That will help insulate them from the cold air and the warm
air,” McLaurin said.
“Mulch will help keep the root system an even temperature. That
keeps the roots cooler
and keeps the sun from heating up the soil. So it will slow down
the growth that’s
coming out too early now.”

Perennial garden vegetables like asparagus aren’t showing any
signs of rousing from
their winter sleep.

“We just don’t want gardeners to get anxious and start wanting
to plant stuff,”
McLaurin warned. “We have a lot of winter left.”

If you’re worried about losing the show of your flowering trees
and shrubs, you should
be.

“Those that are showing flower activity now are primarily at
risk,” said extension
horticulturist Jim Midcap. “Those are the trees that usually
have low chilling
requirements.”

“I’ve seen some Bradford pears that are swelling, and they’ll be
at risk,” he said. “But
redbuds aren’t showing any activity because they probably
haven’t had enough chilling
to break their dormancy. So they’ll make it even through the
warm spells.”

The tree’s flowers most at risk are the early spring bloomers
including Bradford pear,
Japanese magnolias and some of the early blooming cherry
varieties. Some varieties of
jasmine are also showing flower color.

“Some forsythias are in bloom,” Midcap said. “And those buds and
blooms often get
zapped by freezes in late winter or early spring if it gets cold
enough.”

Once zapped by winter freeze, will trees rebud?

“On most spring flowering trees, the buds are preformed in late
summer or early fall,”
Midcap said. “If it gets cold it will kill those that have
started to swell. But there are
often smaller buds that are later coming out, and they will
survive because they haven’t
started to swell.”

Don’t give up completely on the spring flower show in your
yard.

“Buds that are swelling now will probably be killed if we get
colder weather,” he said.
“Those that aren’t beginning to swell will be hardy enough to
survive. But if they all
get killed, there won’t be any flowers.”

The spring will still be green, he said, because leaf buds come
out later than the flower
buds and are much hardier.