Yikes, things are waking up already here in 7A.
I cut scion wood a little over a week ago when things seemed still solidly asleep and am glad I did. I just walked around the garden and saw that the Apricots are already pushing flower buds. It doesn’t look too good to get a crop on this one, but who knows?
Fortunately, I don’t see anything else really pushing.
Obviously those folks where it is -20 might have a little more time…
Actually it also depends what you will cut. The figs and grapes here are in the middle of dormancy.
We had just few days below freezing marks this winter, and this is zone 6A. Last few days it s almost 50F during the day. However, Friday night we expect -7 F(feels like -22F). Honestly,I am not sure what could survive after such winter…
My Tomcot has a tiny hint of swelling. Most likely we won’t get cold enough to damage them at this stage, but I’m concerned because it’s going to jump to the 60s after this next cold snap, and every time it gets that warm, they advance a little more.
The other thing that makes it more dicey is that we had plenty of chill hours already. The cold December was actually a negative in that regard.
I collected some mulberry and persimmon today.
Persimmons still looked very dormant… gerardi mulberry had some really nice buds… but dont think they were past prime. I got some last year that looked the same and they worked great for me.
My apples, che, jujube, cherry, eu plums, raspberry, logans… still look very dormant…
Blueberries and goumi had the most bud swell and some color showing in the buds.
My stone fruits are swelling too. I agree, this may be total loss this year. At least it’s not all fruits. Yet.
Is there a risk to the tree when you take scions in very cold weather, i.e. is the new cut vulnerable to dessication?
I have been meaning to make a post about all the lovely cherry blossoms around thanksgiving
time.
More cherry trees with bud opening in NJ now and its 55F.
My low temp so far this winter 25F… (nice)…
But next 10 day forecast includes several mid to low teens and 3 nights 6F-8F.
I should be able to collect scions as usual… end of Jan or early Feb.
I’ve read from a number of sources that you should wait until brutal cold temps are seasonally unlikely before cutting scions. Obviously, that is likely an issue only in the northern U.S.
I usually try to wait until early March before cutting very many scions or to prune
56 this morning. Next week much colder. Buds swelling on pluots.
Yes, hopefully 2024 they’re not yet at that stage!
I’m not doing scion cutting yet.
So far this year I think things are still nice and tight and dormant and no real warm-up for at least 10 days. I’ll wait at least that long to cut this year’s scions since I always think keeping them as fresh as possible is best.
But I’ll take cuttings from some in ground figs tomorrow before we dip into the teens. We don’t get much damage on in ground figs these days, but I did have a few smaller cuttings last year that didn’t root and I realized later they were either fully DOA when I cut them or had at least some cold damage that made them less viable.
Nothing swelling at all yet here.
Snow day 2 days in a row here, not because of snow but because wind chill below -25
I collected scion yesterday of plumcot, pluot, and from my early varieties of Japanese plum. Quite a few of these early varieties had buds swelling. Temperature currently just at the freezing point with light snow.
It is amazing how different things can be year to year. This is the same tree exactly one year later from the picture I started this thread with. Buds are tight and closed still with no signs of waking up.
But we’re heading into a warm up with daytime temps in the 60s and lots of rainy mild days, so I’ll cut my scions this weekend just to be safe.
