Winter in spring

For the last six months I’ve been collecting a variety of plants for my in-laws who live in the mountains of Northern California. We delivered the plants a couple of days ago, expecting crisp but sunny spring weather. Well, the weather gods managed to surprise as again, as they already have many times this year. Instead of sunshine, we were greeted by rain. It did stop briefly—the sun even popped out for an hour or two—but then it resumed and overnight turned to snow. I could hardly believe my eyes when I woke up to a solid snow cover this morning!

Post-Easter winter wonderland

We’re still hoping for a few sunny hours this afternoon so we can do some planting but it’s beginning to look less and less likely.

Have I mentioned how weird the weather has been this year???

10 ft. Ginkgo biloba ‘Autumn Gold’, freshly leafed out and blooming.
The 5-gallon can had to sit between the driver and passenger seat for the tree to fit in our van.

New leaves and flowers. ‘Autumn Gold’ is a male cultivar; it flowers but doesn’t produce the smelly fruit that gives female ginkgos a bad name.

Close up of leaves and (male) flowers

Other plants packed into the trunk of our car
(we’d already unloaded our luggage when I took this photo)

In addition to the the ginkgo, we brought a division of our Miscanthus sinensis ‘Silberpfeil’ which we’d removed last fall; an Aloe maculata from our large succulent bed; a yellow-twig dogwood (Cornus sericea 'Flaviramea'); a strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo); a variegated California lilac (Ceanothus thyrsiflorus 'Perado'); a camellia ‘Elina Cascade’ (Camellia tsaii var. synaptica ‘Elina Cascfade’); and a Parney’s cotoneaster (Cotoneaster parneyi).

Rain mixed with snow…

…turning to snow overnight

Our plants covered by an inch of freshly fallen snow this morning

The poor camellia got so top heavy it flopped over

LEFT: Variegated ceanothus, almost completely covered
RIGHT: Ginkgo looking much less cheery than the day before

Ginkgo leaves and flowers covered with snow

I took the opportunity for a quick stroll through the snow to snap some photos. However, the wet snow quickly soaked into my sneakers so it wasn’t a particularly long outing :-).