Dateline 11/20, Minnesota…..We had our first hard freeze last night. It got down to 26F and that killed the eight different garden flowers and potted plants that were still blooming outside our house. (The dead who now have departed to flower heaven include Marigolds, Star of Bethlehem, Flox, Daylily, Dianthus, Hydrangea, Zinnia, and some hummingbird flower.)
To me this is a freak outlier example of the subtle yet inexorable impact of global warming/climate change. The average first freeze in our part of Minnesota is 10/7. It is pretty common for us to have a freeze around Sept. 15, or any time after that. I remember a freeze on Labor Day weekend, but that was way back in 74. In recent years I remember once going until late October before we had our first freeze, but 11/20 eclipses that event by more than three weeks.
It was really strange when we got to the 1st of November and the flowers were still living. We also picked some zucchini and red raspberries after 11/1- we’ve never done that before. The date when these flowers died in Minnesota is not a catastrophic El Nino or any kind of writ large global warming event, but I think climate change is sneaking up on most people and many confuse events like this with the weather. For me when this year’s flowers died is a marker that I’ll remember and I understand the implication of this event.
Tomorrow is my wife and I’s 40th wedding anniversary. There were no flowers at our ceremony. A blizzard prevented them from arriving to the local greenhouse by truck. That’s the type of November weather in Minnesota that I remember.