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Spring flowers can survive Michigan’s wild weather
QWith this hot and cold weather, do I have to worry about any of the spring flowering bulbs? How about my hostas? I have been using my time at home to rake dead plant leaves and tree leaves out of the flower beds. I have not taken them to my compost pile yet. How do I handle this weird weather?
AWelcome to springtime in Michigan. Almost every spring, we get a mixed plate of the weird, the wild and the woolly. And throw in some hot days followed by snow for big temperature swings.
Rest assured; your spring flowering bulbs tolerate this crazy weather just fine. Even if the temperature drops below freezing, the flowers and foliage may appear wilted in the early morning but will recover later in the day. The advantage of cool or cold weather is it extends the length of flowering. If the weather is hot, bulbs like daffodils and tulips might only last three days before taking a header to the ground.
The same thing applies to flowering trees and shrubs. A cool spring makes for longer-lasting color. But a cold spring is not as kind to many perennial plants.
Many people are eager to clean out perennial beds in the spring. By removing mulch like leaves or wood chips, the ground warms more rapidly. But popping your head above ground in Michigan in the spring comes with risks.
Most of the perennials, however, including hostas, are not equipped for freezing weather. Hosta leaves that get frozen look like lettuce leaves put into the freezer — translucent and wilted with damaged plant cells. Portions of the first rolled leaves that come up become damaged. These groups of rolled leaves are called bullets. The outer wrapping of leaves is at the biggest risk.
It’s best to wait until May for bed cleanup, but if not, keep the mulch close at hand. If the weatherguesser indicates close to freezing temperatures, push the mulch over the plants for protection. Better safe than frozen.
QI got a catalog in the mail that has fruit trees for sale. They have some amazing grafted apple trees that have three or five different apples on one tree. My family loves apples and I think that if I bought some of the five-inone trees, we could have a variety of apples for everybody’s taste. Do these grow well in Michigan?
ADanger, Will Robinson. You may not be lost in space but there is a problem here.
First, the basic information. All apple trees are grafted. That is why you always get the exact same kind of apple from the named tree. For apple trees to produce apples and seeds, they must be cross-pollinated with a different kind of apple, like Macintosh and Fuji. That means that the seeds pro
duced are a combination of the two parents. Macifuj? If you were growing trees from seed, you would never get a Fuji again because of that mix-and-match thing going on.
Grafted trees will always produce what the parent tree did, because they are clones of the original. That said, when you graft five different
kinds of apple branches onto one trunk, you have a problem because all the apple trees are not created equal. Some are more vigorous than the others. They grow faster and are stronger than some of the others. Eventually, the weak ones die or fail to thrive or do not produce fruit while the strong ones dominate.
Even with the threein-one trees, some thrive and others don’t. You have paid a premium price for a tree that will, most likely, never give what’s promised. Your five-inone could end up as twoin-one on a lop-sided tree.
If you have room for multiple trees, decide on a few different kinds. You need two different trees for cross-pollination. That will improve your chances for applenirvana.