What's With the Cold???

For the second day in a row, I got up to dreary damp cold weather. What's with that? Doesn't Mother Nature know the average date for our last freeze here in the piney woods of east Texas is March 15 and the average date for last frost is March 21-31?

We have already experienced a slight freeze that ruined tomatoes (if you were silly enough to have them planted already) the flowers of the Loropetalum (Loropetalum chinense) 

Loropetalum after the freeze

Before the freeze

Ground Orchid

After the freeze

and the ground orchids (Spathoglottis Plicata).

Blackberry

Did you know that the old timers refer to this cold snap in late spring as a Blackberry winter? This cold snap usually happens when the blackberries are in bloom and may help the blackberry canes to grow. In other areas of the country, it is referred to as Dogwood winter, Whippoorwill winter, Locust winter and Redbud winter. Some of these terms originate from what is blooming in a particular area during a cold snap.

 Another resource calls this time of year Linsey-Woolsey Britches winter which refers to a type of winter long johns that could be put away after the last cold snap. Linsey-woolsey is a combination of the words linen and woolen. It is a coarse fabric, most common in the United States during the Colonial era.

Makes me itch just to think about it. And cold.