In article ,
"Franz Heymann" writes:
|
| It wasn't the -8 that caused the trouble, but the late frosts of
| -1 to -3 that did. One of them also took out all the flower buds
| on my wisteria.
|
| The local experience in Wensleydale is also that it is not the hard frost
| during the dormant season which does most harm, but the lighter, later
| frosts which puts paid to new growth.

Yes. The worst frost I have seen in Cambridge was following a long
warm spell in February. It wasn't all that bitter, but there was
a week of continual freezing winds. I lost a pyracantha and a
Lonicera periclymenum!

Relatively few things died in the coldest spells, even though the
ground froze 4" inches down, when they were in the depths of winter.

I reckon to lose the wisteria flowers one year in two, even now,
with the warm winters we have been seeing. And it is always the
late frosts that do it, never the early ones.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.