Death of the Daffodils

The weather forces decided to play a cruel trick on our daffodils. We just came through a very mild February so they all popped out of the ground ready to spread early spring cheer. The flowers opened just in time for winter to provide one last really cold night. It was so sad to see so many of the flower stalks lying limply on the ground.

At that point, there is no saving them. The stem is hollow and if it freezes, it loses all ability to hold itself up and it won’t bounce back even when the temperatures warm up. Some of them didn’t freeze all the way through and did come back to life as we’ve finally moved into more March like temperatures. But one cold night took a heavy toll.

I know that the flowers don’t last all that long to begin with but they did get cheated out of a longer existence. The only good thing is that they keep coming back so I guess they have to hope for better conditions next year.

I guess that is the risk of things that flower early. Get fooled by a false spring and you run the risk of being frozen out when winter slaps back.

And there was significant activity at our bird feeders this weekend as Saturday felt like a flashback to January. I know wind chill is a thing but I don’t like thinking about it in March.

Now the calendar says it is spring although the weather patterns don’t read calendars so there is no guarantee that we won’t have a few more callbacks to winter. Still, the rest of the week appears to be promising with more seasonal temperatures.

But it is too late for the daffodils.