A Kansas Country Garden: Freeze Scare

After the freeze, the crabapple still blooms.

An erratic spring continues. A warm day, and the buds swell on the blooming trees and bushes. But the next day its cold and snow coats the green grass. Predictions are for a hard freeze that night.  If only there was a way to stop it. The crabapples, the red bud trees, the Bradford pears, the flowering almond, the lilacs--all are vulnerable. A hard freeze would mean we'd have no blooms until next year. Not a happy thought. 

Flowering Plum, Prunus mume, has an exquisite bloom.

So how did we do? Better than expected, that's for sure. It's like a second spring-- an unexpected gift--when what you thought was lost, is not and you can enjoy the flush of flowers in all their glory after all.

It would be a shame to go a year without seeing this. So glad our crabapple tree continues to bloom.

The flowering almond, Prunus triloba, is often one the first bushes to bloom.

Each spring our town fills with clouds of white flowers. Everyone loves their Bradford Pears--in the spring, anyway. Some have been replaced with more hardy varieties. Bradfords tend to break in the ice and wind.

What a privilege to live where the skies are such a brilliant blue. 

The forsythia blooms are often an early sign of spring.

Looking back:
A year ago (2013):

Last year an ice storm did put an end to many of our spring flowers.

Two years ago (2012):

Spring was much further along two years ago and the columbine were blooming.