Bypassing Early Spring Entirely

Last year, Spring proceeded as usual, with that passing cloud of color on the trees as the buds began to open. Maples were red, sarvice and hawthorn showed a little white, and the fruit trees and ornamental shrubs hinted at color to come. This year, we had a four-day hard freeze and snowstorm just as the first flush of color began, and the whole stage was called off. The woody plants, both introduced and native, lost all their buds. The buckeyes and lilacs looked the saddest, with dangling dead leaves, but the maples, oaks, apples, and cherries had their expanding buds frozen too. More than a month later, the maples and the fruit trees are sprouting adventitious leaf shoots, but the locust trees and oaks are still bare.