O, Melissa! I feel so anguished about the climate here, too. It's way, way too early for spring. Here in Tuscany we have been blessed with good rain, thank Heaven, but I know that most of Italy-and much of Europe, I think, are in drought. My DH is in Sicily now (his mom broke her leg),and today told me that ther the drought is so bad that farmers have to BUY fodder for their animals, since there's no grass, and are hard put to provide them with water. I truly dread the thought of summer. They have not (yet?) restored the fountain on which I depend for water, and it might not be even do-able, since everything came down in that landslide. The thought of the future is so threatening...

Hi Melissa, Hi Bart,

I'm dismayed to read that the situation is bad where you are. It certainly is here in Malta too. I feel very badly for the farmers whose livelihoods will suffer tremendously from the disastrously mild and dry weather we're experiencing this "winter". And like you Bart, I am dreading the summer ahead.

The strangest thing has been the wind. Usually here, the dominant winds shift in the fall, and between late October and March we experience very strong north-easterly wind called Gregale, which brings the cold and the rains. I watch for the shift, because that's also the side my garden is most exposed, and usually prune shortly after the first gale-force storm has done it's damage. At first I thought, winter is late this year... I've been waiting since the fall, but the wind never shifted and the storms never came.

Autumn Damask, in her wisdom, has informed me that I can stop waiting. She says spring is starting right now, and is gearing up for a full flush.

Best of luck to both of you with your gardens, I hope you can find strategies to help them cope with whatever is to come this year!

Best of luck to us all. I get the impression that a good part of the Mediterranean is suffering from the drought and unseasonable high temperatures we're experiencing.

On the other hand, I was just out in the yard doing a trifle of cleanup, and the garden is seething. I planted a bunch of different kinds of snow crocus years ago, and many didn't survive (including some of the prettiest, like the pale blue one) but those that did make it have increased and spread considerably. Cyclamen hederifolium seeds around and takes hold with enthusiasm: I'm considering collecting the strays at the end of their growth period and planting them in one spot where they can romp, and not run over my other cyclamen kinds, which are mostly also doing pretty well. Alexandrian laurel seeds, sometimes at good distances from the mature plants. Winter aconite seeds around: I just dug up, divided, and replanted a clump from the garden down in the woods: the plants look fine in their new home. Green snowdrops are spreading like mad in the woods.

There are seedlings at the base of the Confederate jasmine (Trachylospermum jasminoides). The Trachycarpus palms are seeding all over the yard, to my mixed feelings: I haven't quite gotten over regarding them as a treasure (which they are) and their seedlings as a piece of luck; but there certainly are a lot of them. A possibly not-sane part of my mind thinks how great a palm grove would look down at the start of the woods. I know the perfect place for them, and, climate change, you know. All these are in addition to the rich growth of annual grasses, chickweed, tiny wild geraniums, and of course the always wonderful violets.

Certainly the current, and prolonged, conditions have been bad for many plants, for example, my native hepaticas. They hold their distinctive foliage year round, which makes them easy to locate, and I can't find any in the woods at all. Also, all the common primroses we planted last year failed. I replanted some in a wet, dank area, which seems to be the kind of conditions they like around here, and will see how they do. I saw my first dog's-tooth violet (Erythronium dens-canis) flower yesterday, and am hoping more will appear.

I forgot to say this in noting the fervor of the garden: bart, I hope you get your water source back!

Thank you,Melissa. I do too.

Addendum. After my first post I went down through the shade garden and the woods down to the lowest area, where there's a year-round streamlet and a bit of swampy ground. A bucket left in the garden showed that we had gotten four or five inches of water by mid-morning. The garden and woods are as I haven't seen them for years: the hollows and drainages are full and running with water; the year-round streamlet is a small torrent; the sound of water fills the air. This is what I've been waiting for for three or four years now; finally, at last, we're getting enough water. It's still raining and is forecast to keep on coming, which is fine with me. 'Repubblica' this morning said nothing about flooding so far. I hope some of this gets down in the soil and into the aquifers. It is glorious.

Melissa - congratulations on the rain! That added to your unusual warm weather should set your garden up for a glorious Spring bloom! As long as there is water, it seems to me that the increase in average temps we are all experiencing will just make some plants unhappy, but others way more happy. I think the problem is the speed of the change - it does not give plants and animals a chance to adapt. Europe, during recorded history, has been way warmer than it has been for the past 200 years - they were growing grapes in England in Roman times, as I recall.

We have been very lucky here lately - after 5 years of drought, last winter and this winter have been very wet - we are above 25 inches of rain so far since Oct 1. Everything in my garden is leafing out, setting buds, etc - it is lovely when we get a sunny day or two between rainstorms to walk around and enjoy the energy in the garden - you can practically hear it. I have been running around on sunny days between the stomrs throwing time release plant food all over, as well as putting our home made compost around as much as I can. I top it with Preen, one of the anti-seed generation products. it does not hurt any plants at all - just prevents seeds from germinating, so all of the weed seeds I and the gardeners have spread inadvertently by weeding (so easy right now - weeds just come up with a gentle pull because of how damp the soil is) won't turn into yet more weeds. Normally Osmocote and Preen need to be "watered in", but with 2-3 rainstorms guaranteed each week, I just let them do it.

Here's hoping you get way more storms like the one you are havng now - I know what joy rain brings when someplace is in a drought.

Jackie

Melissa, I'm thrilled that you're getting rain. Let's hope Bart's fountain is repairable. You both deserve a break, even if Mother Nature isn't very even-handed in doling out her bounty.

Congratulations indeed, Melissa ; I'm so glad that the rains have finally arrived for you, too. Your description is so joyous, and captures very well the beauty of rain and water. I like yours, too, Jackie, but here in Italy the increase in summer temperatures has gone beyond the pale. This also heats up the Mediterranean sea, which surrounds most of the country, to absurd levels, and then when the weather changes in autumn, at the first arrival of cooler temperatures, the situation becomes explosive. They've had to coin a new term for the resulting storms: Medicanes,that is hurricanes, but in the Mediterranean. This was one of the causes of Ciaran, the storm that so devastated our area. Furthermore,long periods of drought severly weaken the trees and plants that hold our steep terrain in place , so that when the rain finally arrives, they topple over, causing mud/landslides. Here we've been getting plenty of blessed rain, but last night there was another landslide , blocking the main road a bit to the north from our house.

Good luck, bart, to you and those in your area! So far, the results of our rain, which has been steady rather than erratically heavy, seem to be on the whole positive. In the mountains it's been snowing....thank goodness.