If you don't like the Maine weather, wait a minute

Sure enough, winter came back with a vengeance this weekend, with gale force winds and bright sunshine causing havoc with plants that had started to emerge from dormancy. Fortunately, most of my vulnerable perennials were well mulched, but after a sad experience last year with flowering shrubs that were slow to awake in late spring (clethra, hydrangea) and poor flowering, I decided to wrap my Nikko Blue macrophylla hydrangea in advance of the predicted low temperatures of 4 degrees last night. I should have done it the night before, because the wind chill was off the scale. Not sure this will do any good, but at least there is some protection for the fragile buds, which drop off when touched.

Maine Garden Day, the annual gardening conference of Maine Cooperative Extension, has opened registration. This event at Central Maine Community College in Auburn is always a sell-out. Registration materials are online at
http://www.umaine.edu/umext/york/MG/mgbrochure.htm or click on link at right under "Flower Shows and Garden Events".