Spring has sprung, Kinda

[Smallgardener]

It is dry here and temperatures have been wild. From near 80 in November to single digits and back up again. Spring has been no different with a warm January cold feb and quick drops as low as 13 degrees in late march. So this makes me wonder is it is the temps that injured my two cherry trees. I noticed the buds were swelling in march then we got a cold snap into the teens. The buds stopped and a few leaves came out on the lower branches. These trees are 8 feet tall and have been in the ground for 4 years now. The sweet cherry is about 6 inches at the base and the Bing cherry about 4 to 5 inches for the trunk. The branches are dry and dead on most of the tree. Could this be the freeze that killed them. The neibhor sprayed for weeds about 2 weeks ago but stayed back away from them. I can see the line. No different than any other year. Or is it the dog pen that they are next to. Like 2 feet away so I know the roots go into the dog pen. The dog has been there for 3 years. These trees have been producing fruit for the last two summers.

[imafan26]

Spring has definitely sprung here in Hawaii. We are getting the April showers now. The Pacific High has moved a bit off to the East and more showers are coming my way.

The herald of Spring around here are the Gold Trees which are in full bloom now.

https://hihort.blogspot.com/2012/03/some ... -gold.html

It is warm enough to break a sweat and now I need to remember to put on my sunscreen if I don't want to get toasted.

I am getting better germination on my seedlings now, so it is a good time to plant everything, except cilantro. It will be too hot by the time it matures .

Right now, the thrips are showing up everywhere, even on the weeds. I need to pull some of the plants out and I may actually have to resort to spraying. This is the worst it has been in years. I usually have thrips all of the time, but this is the first time, I am seeing so much damage especially to to the cabbages and lettuce.

I am seeing erineum gall mites on the hibiscus so I did treat it. I disbudded the plant since I am using systemic rose care which lasts around 6 weeks, hopefully by then the gall mites will be done for the year. It is one of the few plants I still have to treat with systemics because my only other choice would be to get rid of the plant. It is in a pot, so I can isolate it.

I have a few varieties of peppers sprouting now. Some of them I may have mislabeled so I will have to wait until they fruit to identify them. I need more space. I have a couple of ghost pepper and Trinidad scorpion pods ripening so I may be able to collect some seed from them.

[Smallgardener]

I looked back at the march temps and I see that the teen temps were in the first week. the rest of the month lows were in the 30's. March 16 it got to 91 degrees and the next day down to 31.

[applestar]

It sounds very likely that the unfolding buds got blasted by frost and / or freeze....

[Smallgardener]

Yes, unfortunately it not only killed the buds. It killed both trees.

[Smallgardener]

So it turns out the local nursery has had a number of people claim their cherry trees died this spring among other trees.
They are blaming it on the harsh freeze last November we had here.

80 degrees on the 10th of November to a low of 6 degrees on the 13th of November.