It's Getting Weird Out There....

Well with temperatures hitting 15 degrees on Christmas Day and Boxing Day and the rest of this winter being unseasonably mild Mother Nature really has got her knickers in a twist :D; I saw 2 bees on Christmas Day, a butterfly on Boxing Day and today whilst walking around the neighbourhood I've seen all sorts of stuff flowering when they shouldn't be; Kerria in full flower, Marigolds, Osteospernum in flower (it's usually just a bedding plant), Red Valerian in flower, Centaurea montana (perennial cornflower) in flower, Fuchsias in flower, Snowdrops and Daffs in flower, Hazel catckins in full flow............bonkers, absolutely bonkers :D

 

If everything is flowering .... that means that plants are trying to reproduce by creating seed, so as to protect their species in hard times?

so, maybe plants know more than what we know and are getting ready for an extreme cold winter in Jan/Feb/March?

many have commented on the plants/shrubs that carry berries ... they have had loads this year

 

plants cannot know what will happen, the chances are they are just taking advantage of frostless situation, and like you say getting the seeding process going. They're only doing it because they have an oppurtunity.

for me there are Zantedeschia aethiopica in flower, Alocasia macrorrhiza in flower, Callistemon rigidus, Delospermas trying to flower, Yucca guatamalensis, growing slowly. Only plant that is categorically not growing in my garden is Cordyline fruticosa.

 

I wish that the plants that I want to collect seeds from could produce the seed that quick! I only got one lousy seed pod off of my Alstromeria psittacina before the frost got there - as mine has variegated foliage I'm hoping that a seed raised one might lose it.........

I spotted a couple of ladybirds yesterday...........

 

I Noticed today an Apple Blossom Tree ,Blooming away as if it was Spring .
I Have never seen this in all my Gardening days..

 

How do you know that?

There is a piece of folklore that says trees wont show green buds until after the last hard frost, except Blackthorn, which is the tree that the Morrigan retreats into at the end of winter, which will sometimes try to trick farmers by blooming early.

Superstition aside, it is quite amazing how much scientists still don't know about how plants work.

 

I know that plant react to current conditions and the conditions that have gone before. People sometimes day a great flush of berries is the sign of a cold winter, but in many cases it is just a sign the Spring preceding it has been warm, and flowering has been generally uninterrupted by frost.

Plants don't have a sense of pain or conscious (they can't afford to with being rooted in one place), so they cannot react to anything other than what their environment allows them.

As for the buds on trees, the last frost often occurs in March or April in some parts, and therefore this is the traditional time for trees to start budding.. that said I've seen trees budding into leaf through short frosts, they shrug it off - they have to or they won't get a beneficial growing season.

 

Reading through a horticulture book I have, that is apparently written by about 5 horticultural scientists, it amazes me just how much is understood, but it amazes me more, in this day and age, how much they admit they still do not understand.

For example, some plants, grown in lab conditions, have a root system that makes a direct route to the nearest water supply. In the experiment, the water supply is off to one side of the tank they're grown in, and the growing medium is carefully controlled to be consistently moist throughout, except obviously close to the water supply. The roots, aim straight for the water, despite the equipment in the lab being unable to find anything that stimulates the roots to grow in that particular direction. Is that magic or science? My answer to that is that they are one and the same thing, and something magic only becomes science when a provable explanation is found, which it inevitably will be at some point.

 

Definitely some interesting features on plants which like you say, aren't understood yet. I'd love them to say plants have a consciousness that is different to one we understand, that would be very interesting, but as yet there's nothing to show.

 

I'd like to know how Mimosa pudica "works"!

 

It is indeed a very interesting subject, but I must disagree with you on one point. I'd hate the scientists to find that plants have a consciousness. That would mean I'd feel as guilty about eating veg as I do about eating meat:(

Incidentally, there was something I saw on a documentary years ago, which has since been studied in more depth. I can't remember where it was, but years ago there was a grove of trees that were raided by locusts. The first couple of trees were decimated, but the rest suffered only minor damage. It was observed by ordinary non-scientist sorts so there was nothing conclusive found at the time, but the phenomenon has been studied scientifically since, and it was found that some trees, when under attack, release a certain chemical (it goes way over my head at this point), and the neighbouring trees, in response to exposure to this chemical, go into overdrive producing a different chemical that acts as an insect repellent.

 

.....seen a pair of blackbirds collecting nesting materials yesterday from my veg patch, also a pair of bluetits were actively inspecting one of my bird boxes..!!!!

 

I would find it interesting what dendrochronology (sp) tree ring dating will have to say about this period we are living through.
We have reports of drought yet the ground is to wet to work!
we have reports of high temps.yet struggled to get fruit to ripen!
We have plants growing out of season but the weeds in my garden are still dormant!
The chickens still don't think spring is here they haven't started laying in abundance!
Perhaps this is the calm before the storm it is 2012 after all.

 

"I'd like to know how Mimosa pudica "works"!"

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All plants respond to external stimulus. Light, gravity, touch etc. (eg, roots grow 'away' from light and towards gravity, to ensure they are always in the ground, wheras shoots grow 'towards' the light, as we know!)

The slow responses are governed by the plant's hormones. So the stem of a climbing bean touches the cane. The plant responds to this "touch" by producing hormones to make the untouched bit of the stem grow quicker than the touched bit. This causes the stem to twist around the cane as it grows.

The quicker responses - like a venus fly trap or Mimosa pudica - are governed by water in the cells. The plant responds to touch by making water rush from certain cells to others, resulting in the sudden closing of the fly trap or leaves etc.

They're called tropic (phototropic - light, thigmotropic - touch) or nastic responses.

 

My wife saw a robin collecting nesting material in our garden yesterday.

I thought many birds timed their nesting in line with plant bud development so that there would be plant leaf eating insects around to feed to their young at time of hatching.