Mid May is passing and our nights are still cold. The heat still comes on every morning. By mid day it's nice enough, cool and sunny, and we can turn the heat off, but nights continue to be in the low 40s.
That's keeping my plants from filling out. So many are still barely emerging or shriveled up from the cold.
It's getting discouraging. The columbines look good, though, and here are a few things that are looking nice:
The indigo bush clematis is blooming well, but it's all down at ground level, despite using a support ring in the pot to hold it up somewhat.
Some deep red petunias are nice, and look at this -- Bartzella peony is blooming early this year. It usually puts out its two yellow blooms at Memorial Day. I guess it likes the cold.
The delicate geraniums are blooming. Biokovo makes a pretty carpet under the aspens. Because they've spread in four separate clumps, they are visible and look nice in dappled shade. The Raven mourning widow smoky purple geraniums are not visible at all, I had to get down at ground level and look up close. You can't see them from any distance.
I fertilized all the pots this week, but I'm reluctant to fertilize anything in the ground while plant growth is so curbed. I applied fertilizer to everything on April 22, so it's been a month now.
But it won't help much until growth starts.
Here I need lots of fertilizer, not just some compost dressing. Even plants that want lean soil, like agastaches and Russian sages and salvias and blanketflowers, look yellow and small unless I give them several shots of fertilizer 2 weeks apart during the season.
But I do think I need to wait a bit longer. The overnight low next Tuesday is forecast to be 37° but the end of the week gets warmer. By Memorial Day weekend overnight lows will consistently be around 50.