Spring in January
January 18, 2020 by New Hampshire Garden Solutions
On Friday the 10th of January it started warming up, and it didn’t stop until the temperature reached 62 degrees F. and all the snow was gone and all the records were broken. January thaws usually last for about a week and temperatures rise an average of 10° F higher than those of the previous week but this was a thaw to remember, with temperatures rising 30 degrees or more. I think of a January thaw as a taste of spring in the dead of winter, and it is always welcome.
Snow was coming off roofs in lacy sheets because of the ice underneath.
I followed an ice covered road by a pond and by the time I walked back, in the space of a half hour most of the ice you see here had melted.
The ice on the pond was melting quickly and was covered with water. When it freezes again it will be a great surface for skating.
On a day like this it was easy to think of red wing blackbirds building nests in the cattails at the pond edges, but they won’t really be back for a couple of months.
North of Keene you could see it was still January on the banks of the Ashuelot River but that snow was thin and I’d guess that it is all gone now.
You can see how thin the snow was in the woods. I’d guess no more than two inches, and two inches melts fast in 60 degree weather.
The high water mark along the river showed that there was plenty of room for all the melting snow.
The Ashuelot River south of Keene looked completely different than the photo I took of it in the north of Keene and they were taken just a few hours apart. This view looks more like March.
The melting ice and snow has uncovered a bounty for animals. It was a good year for acorns.
Spring has always been my favorite season so for me a thaw is also a tease that lights the pilot light of spring fever. Seeing pussy willows in January fuels the flames.
Willows often have pine cone galls on them, caused by a gall midge (Rhabdophaga strobiloides). The midge lays an egg in the terminal leaf bud of a willow in early spring and the larva releases a chemical that tricks the willow into creating this gall instead of leaves. The midge spends winter inside the gall and emerges in the following spring, so the entire cycle takes a full year.
I went to see a witch hazel that I had seen bloom quite late before and there it was, blooming again. This is unusual because it’s a fall blooming witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana.) At this time of year I’d more expect to see a spring blooming witch hazel in bloom.
But no, the spring blooming witch hazel (Hamamelis vernalis) buds were still closed up tight. They’ll bloom in March, and I can’t wait to see them again.
I was shocked to see what I think are reticulated iris (Iris reticulata) shoots out of the ground. These irises are early, sometimes even earlier than crocuses, but I have a feeling they’ll pay dearly for believing it was spring in January.
The big flower heads of Hydrangeas can usually be seen blowing across the ground like tumbleweeds in spring, but these stayed put.
Boston ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata) loses its berries over winter and in the spring you can find the ground under them littered with small blue spheres. These examples were still hanging on tight, so they hadn’t been fooled by the warmth. Boston ivy lends its name to the “ivy league” schools. The odd thing about Boston ivy is its name, because it isn’t from Boston and it isn’t an ivy; it’s a member of the grape family and comes from China and Japan. This vine attaches to just about any vertical surface with tiny circular pads that form at the ends of its tendrils. It secretes calcium carbonate and uses it to “glue” the pads to the surface it wants to climb. The glue can to hold up to 260 times its own weight, which is pretty remarkable.
The magnolia flower buds still wore their fuzzy caps and I was glad to see it. I’ve seen lots of beautiful magnolia blossoms browned over the years by opening early and getting frost bitten.
There wasn’t any ice to be seen at Ashuelot falls. The falls are shaded for a large part of the day so any ice that forms here often stays for the winter, but not this time.
The warm spell was a nice respite from the cabin fever that always starts to set in around mid-January. Forty degrees above our average high lets us catch our breath and prepare for more winter weather. We all know there is plenty of winter left to come but for now a taste of spring was just what we needed. Everywhere I went there were people outside, loving it.
The sun came out,
And the snowman cried.
His tears ran down
On every side.
His tears ran down
Till the spot was cleared.
He cried so hard
That he disappeared.
~ Margaret Hillert
Thanks for stopping in.
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Posted in Nature, Scenery / Landscapes, Things I've Seen | Tagged Acorns, Ashuelot River, Boston Ivy, Canon EOS Rebel T6, Cattails, Hydrangea blossoms, January Thaw, Keene, Magnolia Buds, Native Plants, Nature, New Hampshire, NH, Olympus Stylus TG-870, pond ice, Pussy Willow Catkins, Reticulated Iris, Swanzey New Hampshire, Vernal Witch hazel, Willow Pine Cone Gall, Winter Hiking, Winter Plants, Winter Woods, Witch Hazel | 19 Comments
New Hampshire Garden Solutions 
I would find 60 degrees at this time of year very unsettling, knowing that the cold weather was coming back again but then we don’t get your colder weather either.
We love it. It’s a nice midwinter break from the normal below freezing weather.
If it lasted longer though, it would be a bit alarming.
My parents, NH residents, really enjoyed the unusual warmth. Our winter here in Central Illinois has been unusually mild overall, but temps are set to plummet to the single digits tonight. Woe to the little shoots that some of my bulbs started to send up!
Thank you. We haven’t reached 20 degrees today and it’s snowing now.
Yes, I think your spring shoots might have misjudged the weather but they should still bloom. I’ve seen daffodil leaves get completely killed by cold but they still had flowers on naked stalks. It was a strange sight!
Interesting! I’ll look forward to see what all comes up and blooms in a few months.
What a good choice of poem, I loved it.
Thank you Susan. It fit!
Pussywillows in January? The weather these days is highly variable, and plants and trees, especially out here, get confused. I do remember a January in Connecticut in the early 70s when it hit 80 degrees one day! Spring peepers came out, and there were frogs everywhere. Next day we had a blizzard, and there were frozen fogs everywhere.
This is the second January in a row that I’ve seen pussy willow catkins showing, but they hold and go no further until it really warms in spring.
That’s too bad about the frogs! It was warm enough for them to wake up here but I didn’t hear any, thankfully.
Jan. 18, 2020
I remember back as far as 1961, when working on farms and ranches in the Texas Panhandle, that January, supposedly the dead of winter, was a very flip month. At times there would be a period of several days when the temperature rose as high as the 80s (one year even 90).
But it was usually followed by a cold Arctic blast where the temperature dropped as low as zero at night. And, strangely enough, February was often colder than January.
This flip January weather was still in the steadily cooling period from 1940 to 1980 when climate experts were uniformly speculating on a possible “return to the Little Ice Age” (1300-1870).
Here in Chile I have been studying willows for over a year. I remember a warm spell last year when the pussy willow on my place, evidently Salix x. reichardtii, which may be closely related to the one you showed a photo of in your post, began opening its flower buds in June (your December) during a winter warm spell between cold fronts. They and even other flowering plants get all happy and jump the gun when that happens.
But reality set in and the “wiser willows” patiently waited a couple more months, until mid-August, to open up their flower buds en masse. The leaf buds would open up a week or two later on the same plant, around September 1st. And, interestingly, the female trees/bushes opened their green catkins about two weeks after the male trees did their yellow, pollen-covered catkins.
I don’t know why this pattern. This Vetrix group of willows has its reasons, I suppose.
That delayed opening sequence is a trait of Salix caprea, which is European, and I believe S. discolor, which is native. It might even be that of S. cinerea, also European, as well, which is water-loving. I don’t remember. Their buds all have the pussy willow-type, fuzzy cats-paw openings.
I am curious to know which one, or ones, you took a photo of and what their catkins, leaves, and bark are going to look like, which is a way to distinguish between your native and European willow species.
Enough, that’s no doubt more than most people want to know.
On Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 6:52 AM New Hampshire Garden Solutions New Hampshire Garden Solutions posted: ” On Friday the 10th of January it > started warming up, and it didn’t stop until the temperature reached 62 > degrees F. and all the snow was gone and all the records were broken. > January thaws usually last for about a week and temperatures rise an > average o” >
Thank you Ron, we usually have a January thaw but I haven’t seen one this warm in probably about 20 years. February can indeed be bear and we’re hoping that won’t be true this year.
I saw another willow with a single bud open last January but this plant had several opening last week.
It’s very strange for a willow, or any other wind pollinated plant, to have male flowers opening two weeks before the female plants. If the pollen from the male plant doesn’t reach the ovary of the female plant reproduction can’t happen, and that defeats their reason for being. I’d guess that there must have been other male plants blossoming somewhere at the same time the females were. Maybe down wind?
I’ll get some more detailed photos of this one this spring.
No, not in my observation with any Salix x. reichardtii specimen in the 40 mile stretch between Paillaco and Valdivia, where they occur. And I watched them closely.
That’s odd!
You would think so, but the pollen is still abundant on the male catkins when the female catkins fully emerge later.
You know. Males are always in a rush to reproduce!
BTW it is precisely this 20 year period since 2000 that is marked in general by global cooling and a sun bereft of sunspots. The weather may, and does, vary regionally, though.
There is a correlation between sunspot activity and global temperature well-documented since Galileo.
All I know for sure is that summers are getting too hot and winters are nowhere near what they used to be in this area.
That may well be in your neck of the woods, where I notice on weather maps cold fronts often bypassing you to the west, but not globally.
Poor mother nature is baffled for sure. Yes, all the spring bulbs that here in Maryland are 2″ and more out of the ground are going to really take a hit this upcoming week! Sure hope all those emerging buds are not irreparably damaged. Amusing little poem 😊
Thanks Ginny. The bulbs in the photo are the only ones I’ve seen out of the ground so hopefully we won’t see much damage. It does sound like you will though!