Magnolia No Show.

4-28-17 SHORT HILLS: Today is a July day, sunny and in the mid-eighties. Yesterday was overcast and humid with occasional showers, but I did a lot of pruning. Before the leaves came out I did pruning of broken and obviously dead branches, but now, with the leaves out, more dead branches are evident and a second round of pruning is needed.

The saucer magnolias are getting leaves, but only a handful of flowers. Both trees have hundreds of flower buds that are weeks late and are not the usual greenish color before they open, but are turning gray-black. I think they were all frozen in the March snowstorms. Snow in March is expected, what was not is the April weather that we had in February. Like the daffodils and forsythia, the magnolias were lead astray by the unseasonable warmth. Thanks again, Climate Change.

Today I repaired some walkways and did more pruning
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New blooms: saucer magnolia, honeysuckle bush, grape hyacinth, wood hyacinth, jack-in-the-pulpit, Virginia bluebells, early rhododendron, azalea, evergreen barberry.


An early rhododendron makes a bold statement.

Magnolia flower bud should be a flower already. The unopened bud should be green not gray.

One of a few saucer magnolia flowers that did open. Hundreds were frozen.

Lilacs by the dooryard blooming.

Traditional white dogwood flowers.