These cherry-red tulips are blooming in my yard today. I am pretty sure they're Tulipa batalinii, but of course I've forgotten the cultivar. I have boxes of plant labels and old bulb order forms, but I'm afraid it doesn't amount to useful record-keeping.
Even for species tulips, April 1 is pretty darn early. But it was 84 degrees in Chicago today, which broke a record, apparently. All of a sudden there are daffodils and all sorts of things popping up to join the crocuses and scilla and chionodoxa in my beds. Just asking for trouble, if you ask me.
Rationally, I know that this is merely one of the wide fluctuations that are characteristic of the Midwestern climate -- just Tuesday I was lecturing about this to a garden club. Yet I can't help resenting it.
The fact is, I loathe hot weather. Anything over 80 -- over 70 this time of year -- makes me crabby and listless. I suffer enough in August. Leave me alone in April. And for God's sake, will everybody please quit chattering about what "wonderful" weather we're having? And lay off the shorts and flip-flops, will you? It's too soon for me to have to deal with your knees and toes.
This hot spell won't seem so wonderful if we get a fluctuation in the other direction, which can easily happen. The first couple of weeks in April are by no means too late for a hard freeze or a substantial snow. See how your magnolia likes that.
You don't see native wildflowers getting fooled into blooming in these freaky spring warmups. They've spent 10,000 springs around here, and they know better. They wait. They don't expose this year's only chance at reproduction to the risk of a cell-shattering hard freeze.
Until it got so darn hot, I was enjoying the spring, though I've been rushing around too much to do any actual gardening. I was in Washington, D.C., last weekend and caught the cherry blossoms.
I came home to find hellebores
among the scilla and crocuses, which already were alive with bee action.
I was still stuck in front of the computer all day, but it was nicely cool and I figured the early spring flowers would hold for a week or so, until I got a chance to enjoy it.
No such luck. Hot spell. Everything that isn't native is rushing into bloom and it will all be over in days. Meanwhile, I'm melting.
On Saturday, I'll be with my Treekeepers class in Washington Park, planting trees. I hope it cools off some by then. Planting trees is wonderful work in spring or fall. But not in August.
Got a garden question? I recommend you call or e-mail the Plant Clinic of The Morton Arboretum in Lisle, the Master Gardeners of the University of Illinois Extension or the Plant Information Service of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe .
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