Daffodil Flag is finally up in Minnesota

I feel a bit sheepish announcing that I have my first daffodil opening today, with apologies to Tom Stettner, it is ‘Ice Follies.’ I picked them to bring into the house to celebrate, even though they haven’t turned white yet. With all the show cancellations and difficult weather the nation is having, I hope that our Minnesota Show, the first week in May, will have lots of the later flowers. I’ve heard that several other Minnesotans have had something in bloom for more than a week, but I live in the country and am usually about a week later than the city folks. Maybe this year I can win the Havens ribbon! Here in Minnesota, we set a record for the warmest March on record, and the warmth went well to the north where ice out early records were set on many northern lakes. Where I am at, near Lake Minnetonka, ice out was only four days earlier than average. I’ve kept my mulch on my beds, fearing that the other shoe would drop and we would have some extreme below freezing temps; I recall a very nasty April 6^th single digit F. reading which destroyed my azaleas one year. Here the orchardists have been afraid of a killing frost with the fruit trees budding so early this year with the unusual warmth in March. As each week goes by, there is less and less chance of a hard freeze, but we usually are not out of the woods until mid to late May for a frost. I have many more buds showing, but no color yet, most are still at the pencil stage, and several varieties are yet to break the ground. I have many Div. 3 and 9 coming up as their roots seem to not completely die with summer heat, according to Michael Berrigan. The rest of the Divisions are still somewhat shy with our drought last Autumn keeping root growth down until our still sparse Spring rainfall. Last year we were still shoveling snow at this time. We are close to extreme drought and have fire bans in most of the counties of the State.

Edie Godfrey

Minnesota