Forsythia Fail, Why Some of Our Spring Flowers Are Not Flowering

The early April heat launched our spring into overdrive with the leaf out and green up running at least a full two weeks ahead of schedule in the Capital Region as well as in other valley areas. But have you noticed with all that greening that the colorful splashes of yellow, pink, and white are missing from many landscapes? It's not your imagination, few forsythia are blooming with only sparse blooms on some of the early flowering weeping cherries and the small leafed pjm rhododendrons which are known for their brilliant canopies of purple blossoms.

Here's a comparison from my yard last year (2022) versus this year (2023.) Last year the blooms on mine and just about everyone else's forsythia were brilliant, even surviving the April 18-19 heavy wet damaging snow storm. But this year, nothing, and it's not the first time. Most forsythia in the Capital Region that have blooms are either in very protected areas or their blooms are close to the ground where snow likely covered the buds during the winter.

Here's another comparison from my yard of how my pjm rhododendrons looked last year versus this year. Last year, brilliant, this year, very sparse with most of the buds dead on the stems. Disappointing to say the least.

And finally, my Japanese andromeda, typically a tried and true performer every early spring. This year however, it's mostly showing off bouquets of toasted buds with only a few small flower clusters near the ground where snow acted as an insulator.

So, what happened? Well, it's more than likely that the exceptionally warm winter we just experienced, especially January, with the month ending eight and a half degrees warmer than average, warmest since 1939, and fifth warmest on record overall at Albany, was the month in particular that set the stage for the spring flowering debacle we're in right now.

Early spring bloomers like forsythia, according to Peter Bowden from Hewitt's Garden Centers, set their flower buds the previous summer which can leave those buds vulnerable to extreme winter temperature fluctuations. How much damage is done to flower buds, however, depends on the variety of plant, according to Susan Kay Beebe, Assistant Director of the Cornell Cooperative Extension - Saratoga County, as different varieties have different tolerances to temperature extremes. This can explain why the magnolias for the most part locally are doing well this spring with vibrant blooms and the ornamental pear trees coming along okay as well.

But for the forsythia, pjm rhododendrons, early blooming weeping cherries, and Japanese andromeda among others, the damage we're observing now was likely done the first weekend in February when that brief but absolutely brutal blast of arctic air came rolling through sending temperatures well below zero. Flower buds that had swelled due to the sustained and persistent warmth in January were blasted right then with only buds that were insulated either by snow or by being in a warmer protected area making it through.

Because temperatures quickly reverted back to warmer than average through the remainder of February and March with no additional extremes, it's likely we'd be enjoying a much better bloom than we are had this one brief blast of cold air not come down in the middle of such a warm winter.

It's also likely that had our winter been colder, with temperatures even just closer to average, that sensitive flower buds would not have been forced out like they were this past winter and therefore would have remained far less vulnerable to temperature swings. This would have resulted in a much better bloom like we experienced last spring after the 2021/22 winter which came in just 0.6 degrees warmer than average. For comparison, this past 2022/23 winter came in the 5th warmest on record at Albany, 4.9 degrees warmer than the 1991-2020 thirty year average. (You can check out all the facts and stats. for this past winter in my local climate and storm summary database.)

So, if you've noticed a lack of flowers on your early bloomers in your yard, know that the damage is only to the flower buds, the plants themselves are fine. And according to Peter Bowden from Hewitt's Garden Centers, with the plants not putting energy into flowering, lots of extra energy will go into new growth with a healthier plant in the long term and with any luck a spectacular bloomer next spring, proving next winter does not throw us another set of climate curve balls.

The Climate Change Connection

Winters throughout the local area, the Northeast and the country as well as the globe are warming due to climate change and this is stacking the deck in favor of greater extremes in both temperature and weather as a whole over time. We'll still get colder winters in the future, but the cold may come in smaller installments, like what occurred this past winter, but severe enough to disrupt plant cycles more and more frequently. So colorless springs could become something we'll see more often as the changing climate continues to disrupt plant cycles and behavior.