November 2021 in the Northern Hemisphere

[Robert]

SST anomalies in the Atlantic Ocean north of the equator are indicating that the Atlantic Ocean is extremely warm. The NAO has been in negative territory for several months now. Is this impacting the weather in Europe? What are gardeners experiencing?

[shelagh]

Rain, rain and more rain and not very warm. Can you tell I'm not very happy  .

[Robert]

Hi Shelagh,

It sounds like you are getting a lot of rain. Are some of your plants unhappy due to the weather, or just the gardener? Here in California, the wildfire smoke during the summer has been terrible and has been every summer for the past 5 years or so. Here in our garden, the plants, and I are unhappy when there is dense wildfire smoke. Hopefully your weather situation will switch around soon to a much more pleasant pattern.

[Mariette]

After several years of extreme heat and drought I´m glad to report that rainfall is about long-time average this year. Rainy weather isn´t pleasant, but helps many endangered plants to survive and recover. Personally, I could do with some more years like this. Still we have to wait what winter will bring.

[shelagh]

Well Robert the flowering season is coming to an end most of the plants are hunkering down for the winter except for a mad Primula named Julius Caesar which has just come into flower for the second time. In NW England we tend to be rather wet/damp in autumn and fingers crossed not too cold in winter. We'll have to see as the seasons seem to be getting more haywire. I just don't like rain!

[Leena]

Over here October was also more rainy than usually. In my garden we got 116mm rain, almost double of the average. The same weather type seems to continue now, though it is getting colder slowly. There will be no snow yet soon, I'm glad to say.
Plants have been ok with all this rain so far, but if it will be a cold winter when soil is still very wet from autumn rains, then that will not be good for plants. I lost some peonies some years ago after similar weather type.

[Robert]

Mariette,

The torrential rain two weeks ago eased our drought situation. We will have to see what the remaining rainy season brings, to see if our reservoirs fill with water. October had well below average temperatures; however temperatures are back to above average levels. With a huge pool of below average SSTs in the NE Pacific Ocean my guess would be for below average temperatures for the next month or so, providing that geopotential heights fall. Right now the jet is not sagging far enough south to bring us below average temperatures and more rain. Drought and empty reservoirs are tough for gardeners here in our part of California.



This is a scene of our autumn-winter vegetable garden. Most of the freshly planted seeds germinated and grew despite the torrential rains.

Leena,

Thank you for the climatic report. If I understand correctly, if the ground is saturated when the ground freezes for the winter, some plants suffer and do not do well in the spring or may die? Here in our California garden we are lucky now if it even freezes during the winter. Some of our plants can suffer due to a lack of chilling hours during the winter.  It was not that long ago there was (.03-.05 m) snow at the property in Placerville regularly; In Sacramento, there would be a light dusting, although usually it would be bitter cold.  There were always frost advisories for agricultural farmers throughout the region.



Our Lachenalia species thrive in the nearly frost-free climate. This is Lachenalia rubida. It is always the first to emerge from the ground each autumn, even if there has been no rain and the soil is dry. The other species start emerging from the ground shortly afterward; however they all bloom at different times depending on the species. Some bloom in the early spring.



The Channel Island form of Dichelostemma capitatum is always the first of the California native bulbs to emerge from the ground when the first major rain arrives each autumn.

Shelagh,

Sounds like your garden is ready for winter. May spring bring many garden delights including the perfect amounts of precipitation!



Crocus niveus is looking good right now. The wire mesh is designed to keep the digging varmints away from the emerging bulbs. It is ugly, but I want to keep the bulbs, especially species I may never find again.  Already I discovered that some of my native onions were dug up and eaten—They are completely gone!

[Leena]

Thank you for the climatic report. If I understand correctly, if the ground is saturated when the ground freezes for the winter, some plants suffer and do not do well in the spring or may die?

Yes, with our clay soil some plants get Botrytis easily when wet soil freezes, though I try to make raised beds to help soil dry.
I will keep my fingers crossed that this winter would not be very bad. Usually it isn't this rainy in the autumn.

Your garden looks so lovely, almost summer-like:).

[Robert]

Leena,

Here in our Sacramento garden mosaic virus (there are several common to our area) can and often severely impact the growth of plants, both edible and ornamentals. Breeding for virus resistance is imperative if one wants to keep certain plant species in the garden. The Genus Lilium is just one example.

I have to agree, our garden starts to look good when temperatures cool and the autumn rains arrive. It feels great! In California, autumn is often called the second spring. Many plants come to life after being dormant all summer and the California native annuals start to germinate and grow. Currently temperatures are running 1.02 F (0.57 C) above average for the first 5 days of November. Daytime high temperatures are averaging 68.40 F (20.2 C). Temperatures like this might seem like spring or summer elsewhere. Our current seasonal precipitation is 485.56% of average to date. Most of this precipitation came with one storm a few weeks ago over a 36-hour time period. This caused a great deal of localized flooding (even our garden) during what has been a period of intense drought. Without this one storm, severe drought conditions would still prevail. This storm has not ended our drought; even one above-average precipitation season will not end the drought, which has prevailed now for 20 years. Contrary to the latest assemblage of climatic computer models, I forecast that the current precipitation regime will continue as our climate continues to warm. If temperatures continue to increase, desert-like conditions will likely spread outward from the SW USA.  I feel past paleo climatic patterns will prevail. The evidence is very strong that California became very dry during the Medieval Warm Period. I am putting my efforts into becoming a resilient gardener.

[Mariette]

Robert, it must be great to sow seeds of vegetables right now - in our area it wouldn´t make sense before March outdoors!

When clearing withered leaves of a peony I discovered flowering snowdrops of a Galanthus elwesii x peshmenii hybrid.



The lots of rain this summer made most of the cosmeas grow and grow - they started to flower only a few weeks ago.



A late arrival among Cyclamen hederifolium, the blue flowers were shedded by an aconitum.

[shelagh]

A dull day today but Adiantum reniforme looking better than it has all year.

[johnw]

Shelagh -  A. reniforme has haunted me since 1986 when I saw a line drawing of it in a Chinese book. Would it survive in your garden? No matter it's even better looking than the line drawing sugggested.  Thanks so much for posting.  Awaiting 4" of rain and 90km/hr winds; rain every day next week as we exit the monsoon month.

johnw

[ruweiss]

A dull sunday and we took the chance to visit a christmas fair at a nearby nursery. Sorry, there were no alpines,
but we saw 3 Opuntias holding hands and were so impressed by an enormous amount of Poinsettias in many
different colours. It is amazing what breeding has done in the last years

[shelagh]

John thanks for your comments. I don't think A. reniforme would survive the damp outside. It lives in a cold frame.

Rudi I must admit being a traditionalist the only one I like is the red one.

[Hoy]

After a mild but very wet October and November the temperature suddenly dropped 10C and we got a little snow. The forecast says more snow and more rain as the temperature will jump up and down the next week.

Here are some photos from my garden yesterday.

Ilex aquifolium, Saxifraga fortunei, Euonymus sp, Rosa 'Blaze', Orobanche hederae. The last one suddenly appeared from nowhere!