{"id":8239,"date":"2014-05-07T19:32:25","date_gmt":"2014-05-07T23:32:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/?p=8239"},"modified":"2022-08-01T07:43:08","modified_gmt":"2022-08-01T11:43:08","slug":"dead-winter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2014\/05\/dead-winter\/","title":{"rendered":"Farm Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It was not only I who thought we had a particularly long, cold and windy winter here in the North Carolina mountains. Our outdoor plants felt it too.\u00a0 The tally of shrubs that turned into toast over the winter:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>3 Nandina<\/li>\n<li>3 Laurels<\/li>\n<li>6 Rhododendrons<\/li>\n<li>3 Roses<\/li>\n<li>5 Scotch Brooms<\/li>\n<li>3 Hollies<\/li>\n<li>3 Pieris<\/li>\n<li>1 Butterfly Bush<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"http:\/\/planthardiness.ars.usda.gov\/phzmweb\/interactivemap.aspx\">USDA Plant Hardiness Map<\/a>, this area is Zone 6b, meaning that I should ordinarily be safe choosing plants that can survive winter temps of 5 below zero.\u00a0 Most of the plants sold locally are advertised as hardy to Zone 5 (-20F) but I find many that are only good for Zone 7 (+10F) or warmer.\u00a0 I try to stick to Zone 4 and Zone 5 plants.<\/p>\n<p>It was cold last winter, yes, but no way did our temperatures reach 5 below zero, let alone 20 below.\u00a0 No matter &#8212; our lost plants acted like it did.\u00a0 Winter winds at this 2800-foot elevation bite like a psychotic crab telling a Bill Maher joke with a lime in its mouth.<\/p>\n<p>Spring was particularly slow to arrive here.\u00a0 Most trees have just now finished leafing out, about two weeks later than normal.\u00a0 Our hummingbirds, however, returned right on schedule the last week of April.\u00a0 They flew up to the window where my wife usually puts the feeder, hovering to make sure we saw them.\u00a0 Now that we are feeding them again, the hummers show their thanks by peeing on us as we sit on the deck, bless their little 1000-beat-per-minute hearts.<\/p>\n<p>So now it is time to dig in and spread the eight cubic yards of mulch I ordered, to replace what was blown away in our spring cleanup or washed away (whatever wasn&#8217;t blown away) by the 5 inches of rain that fell in 5 hours on a Tuesday morning last week.\u00a0 It will be me, my pitchfork, and my wheelbarrow, which I decided to name &#8220;Hauliver&#8221; after <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Oliver_Wendell_Douglas\">Oliver Wendell Douglas<\/a>, my favorite character on my favorite show, &#8220;Green Acres.&#8221;\u00a0 Fresh air.\u00a0 The chores.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_8246\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-content\/uploads\/pitchfork.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8246\" class=\"wp-image-8246 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-content\/uploads\/pitchfork-640x444.jpg\" alt=\"Oliver Wendell &quot;Pitchfork&quot; Collins\" width=\"640\" height=\"444\" srcset=\"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-content\/uploads\/pitchfork-640x444.jpg 640w, https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-content\/uploads\/pitchfork-300x208.jpg 300w, https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-content\/uploads\/pitchfork.jpg 840w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-8246\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Goodbye, City Life!<\/p><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It was not only I who thought we had a particularly long, cold and windy winter here in the North Carolina mountains. Our outdoor plants felt it too.\u00a0 The tally of shrubs that turned into toast over the winter: 3 &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/2014\/05\/dead-winter\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8239"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8256,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8239\/revisions\/8256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chcollins.com\/100Billion\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}