A Warm Winter

Since it’s felt suspiciously like spring lately, I’ve been thinking about the lack of winter, and how it might affect the trees. Will it cause problems for trees? Could it be beneficial to others?

All trees here in Michigan, even evergreen trees, have dormancy adaptations to the survive the harshness of winter. Most obvious as they begin the dormancy process in autumn.

Interestingly, as this process is happening, the leaves aren’t simply turning off and falling off; the autumn leaf change is an active process the tree is undergoing. It is breaking down and re-absorbing parts of the leaves. Awesome, right?

Weeks before the leaves emerge, there are other, less obvious signs the trees are breaking out of their dormancy period. In mid-February it became evident to me that some of those very first signs were here. Quite a bit early.

Nearly every deciduous tree we’ve worked with lately has shown significant bud-swelling. This tells us the soils are not frozen, and the tree is actively pulling water from it. This type of spring preparation is about 1 month ahead of typical patterns here in our area.

We’ve seen silver maples in full bloom before March, which is fairly surprising. If their flowers freeze off shortly after pollination, they won’t produce their famous (or infamous, depending on who you ask) helicopters this year.

Some trees here that at their northernmost part of their growing range might benefit from the mild winter, like buckeye or honeylocust. They may experience less vascular damage that comes from extreme cold.

Even though our spirits might be happy at winter’s mildness this year, some trees really do need and benefit from longer, colder winters. I’m not really sure if we’ll see weird or unexpected symptoms of lack-of-winter damage. We could never see anything, or it could cause delayed issues too.

I wonder if future winters will look more like this one. This strange winter may have weird affects on your trees. Yet another reason to watch your trees with more attention this year.

I hope your trees are doing OK in this icy and snowy weather.

Talk to ya later,

Tree First