April 2011I must try to keep my blog more up to date. I’m writing this two months in arrears and I’m struggling to recall even May let alone April. But yes, I remember a late frost that has caused havoc in the garden. Re-reading a post last year about my apricot tree not producing any fruit, I’m now beginning to see why. Apricot trees flower before peaches and if you’re unlucky enough to get a frost before the flowers have set you’ll lose the entire crop. This has happened again this month.
Next year I’ll try to cover them but even that may not be enough. My early flowering Rhododendron Praecox looked an absolute picture until frost reduced all the flowers to a mush, and even that was after I tried to protect it with a large plastic bag. This frost has also blackened the young leaves of our beech hedge, burned of the young shoots of a Robinia and worse still, killed off most of the blossom on our apple trees.
My new Golden Delicious, which looked set to produce a bumper crop, had just one apple left by the time this one frost had taken its toll. With the winter snow and ice killing off most of the Torbay Cabbage Palms in the area, as well as Pittasporums and Ceanothus, it looks like being a costly year for gardeners.
