May 2017 began with headlines calling the floods in Texas, Missouri, and Arkansas "unprecedented" and "historic". As I noted in a previous blog (4/6/2017), we are hearing these weather descriptors with great regularity. Other than the melting of the Earth's glaciers and the rise in sea levels, the most obvious result of climate change is frequent severe--literally devastating--weather events. So as this month began, "unprecedented" and "historic" were repeated again and again in describing what was happening in the middle part of the country. Two days before, on April 29, nearly 200,000 people gathered in Washington, D.C. to protest the current administration's unprecedented and historic assault on policies that put the brakes on those human activities scientifically proven to be contributing to, if not causing, climatic changes. That same day Washington tied the record high (90 degrees---19 degrees above normal) for that date, AND the Environmental Protection Agency, now under the "leadership" of climate-change denier Scott Pruitt, scrubbed climate science from its website (see
EPA removes climate change data, other scientific information from website).
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| Serviceberry |
As May began, I analyzed the weather records for April 2017 at Bean Hill. No record highs or lows were set or even tied. However, the highs for 24 of April's 30 days were above normal, ranging from a modest 2 degrees to a troubling 20 degrees. Of those days, 15--half of the month's days--saw high temperatures of at least 10 degrees above normal. In all, April's average high was 7 degrees above the month's historical average. The average low for the month was 6 degrees above the historic average.
On April 4, the Bradford pear, which set blossoms in February, burst into bloom, and within the next four days, the serviceberry and crabapple trees began to bloom. All the blooms were beautiful, but lasted only two to four days before fading, possibly as a result of the blossoms having been set much too early in the year. Photographs I've taken in past years of the blooming trees carry dates two to three weeks later than when the blossoms appeared this year. To stay calm, I've taken to telling myself we're actually living somewhere around the Ohio River, and that all of this is perfectly normal---for northern Kentucky. The Arbor Day Foundation has an interesting map showing how hardiness zones have changed across the nation in the past 25 years (see
Differences between 1990 USDA hardiness zones and 2015 Arborday.org hardiness zones).
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Succulents: Sedum and
hens and chicks |
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| Placing plants in pond |
When I'm out in the gardens, I try to focus on the miracle of spring, marveling at nature's resilience, and enjoying the emerging beauty. I think about what I can do personally to preserve and protect. I can't heal the damage to the Earth already done, largely by human greed and stupidity, but here at Bean Hill, in small ways, I can try to counteract some of the damage. This year I'm planting more succulents; they spread nicely and help to control the weeds, which are getting out of control due to the increasing summer heat and dryness. (Last summer I discovered a two and a half foot tall dandelion growing among the echinacea!) I've researched, thanks to Quaker Earthcare Witness, which native pollinator plants should be added to our gardens (see
Choosing native plants for pollinators in your area), and made several trips to Baker's Acres.
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Mason bees and nesting
tubes. A female has laid
eggs in the sealed tube
in the bottom row |
More plants are being added to the larger pond to cut down on evaporation during the heat of summer. Lastly, as I wrote in my previous blog, we've introduced native mason bees, and at the end of the month we plan to introduce native leafcutter bees. By the way, I am happy to report that there already four completed mason bee nests, meaning little mason bees are in the process of forming.
