I'm happy to report that after shovelling away a 3 foot snowbank, it appears that some of my tulips are coming up :)

However, a lot of the yard is still under 3 feet or more of snow. I know there's a nannyberry under a 4 foot drift, and the quick fire hydrangea that I sunk in it's pot still has to be dug out of 5 feet of snow. In my raised planter, which thankfully has no snow cover anymore, tulips and some type of bulb from two years ago are coming up. My roses seem to be fine and don't have any rodent damage so I'm really glad for that. I can see the broken tips of some of my shrubs and they've been pretty crushed by the weight of all the snow. My junipers look pretty bad. It appears that all of the branches of my weigela are broken which is really disappointing as it finally had a fair amount of blooms on it last year. There's still so much out there under the snow........

We're getting out the shovels again today :(

WOW! That sounds crazy!!! You still have that much snow!? Where about are you?!

But seriously, sometimes I wished that we had more snow cover in Calgary! That's why we have so many problems with gardening here, right? It can get pretty cold and then the poor plants have no snow protection so they just die..... I am sure that once your snow is gone, everything will be alive and happy! :-)

Take care.

Snow cover was good this year. My totally exposed west + south facing front yard has all its snow disappear just last week.

Some years we will have almost zero snow cover. A light dusting :)

This was an extremely mild winter for Calgary. I just checked Env Canada's historical data and it seemed that it didn't even make it to -25C this winter. I did notice that my roses are budding out fierce right to the tips.

My granddaughter and i found crocuses blooming yesterday! They're behind a bank of snow that builds up from falling off the porch roof. My camera was dead, but i'll get a picture today.

It has been an awful winter here - the weather wasn't all that bad, but the fact that it lasted until last Thursday is what made it seem so long and terrible!

Yeah my west-facing crocuses are out too. I was actually totally stunned.

Shazam, as I am still newer to Calgary, this is only my 2nd winter here. I had no idea that this was considered "good" snow cover! LOL! Oh well, I am learning something new every day! LOL!

Your roses are budding already!? WOW! I am just nervous that there will be a hard frost suddenly and then all these budding plants will be in trouble... I surely hope that it will just continue to be mild from now on. What we need now is some rain!

Marcia, I saw some crocuses too, in the south-facing foundation bed at my church. It was very nice indeed. Shazam, when do they usually come out in Calgary? It's almost May now.... sigh!

Good to hear that all wintered well!

Konrad, I was particularly excited to see that the Golden Spirit Smoke Bush and the Sambucus Black Lace did not have severe die back and seem to be quite well! These were borderline for our zone and so I was a bit worried.... hopefully, they will do really well when the weather really warms up! :-)

ostrich,

Yup, I'd say this year was good for snow! I tell long-time Calgarians (or people that have never lived out east) about how much snow falls in eastern Canada and I don't think they believe me.

Don't worry about things coming out. My peonies, roses, leopard's banes (this thing comes out extremely early), jacob's ladders, primroses, bleeding hearts, meadowrue (another extremely early riser!), raspberries, lamiums, irises, beebalms, lupins and daylilies are all already awake and growing. And of course the poplar bubs popped out ages ago all over town, and the elms have already flowered!

Crocuses should start coming out by now. Of course a lot of that is dependent on their sun exposure so it might be as late as mid-May.

Wow...your'e really pushing zone, good thing was that we had a mild winter and plants have a chance to get established,...good luck!
I'm no different, might get some sweet cherries this year, got a
Lapin, Skeena and Vandalay tree looking good, no freeze back.

Come on global warming! I want Calgary to become a tropical paradise in 10 years! :)

I thought spring had finally *sprung* too until the last couple of days when that Alaskan system came through. I'm in the hinterland of BC and we had snow flurries the last couple of days altho it didn't stay. It was -4C this am and isn't getting very warm today.

Our winter was not bad overall. Not nearly as much snow as on the prairies and fairly mild.

My plants are all showing and eventually it will warm up - guess I'm still having to learn patience!

We had about three days worth of spring here, and it's gone now. It might be back by the weekend....

I am in the hinterland of BC too, right on the Alaska Hwy and under a foot of snow. We had spring here a couple of weeks ago. I swear we did! I just don't know where it went...

So depressing! Hopefully it will be back next week.

Oh my! What a difference a few days make. I have been away since Friday.... the temperature in Calgary has been in the teens and twenty's and now most of the perennials, shrubs and trees are budding out! It's so exciting!

Since this is early May, isn't this a bit early for Calgary??!!

konrad, those cherry trees sound fantastic! Do they have beautiful flowers too? Please show us some pics later!

luckygal, marcia and SherylG, I hope that the weather has been mild for you guys too!

I love spring - we just don't have much of it in Calgary... sigh! Now we need some nice, soaking rain to get the grass going...!

Ostrich, we had an awful week last week - cold, rain, s*** - but yesterday was beautiful, and it's supposed to be not bad this week, though it will be cooler by the end of the week. Fingers crossed for good weather from now on!

I just looked at the forecast for Grande Prairie and supposed to be 31 most of the week that is warmer than summer weather I hope it is true!!

Where are my shorts........................

I should know better the forecast has changed again up and down like a pogo stick now ranging from 16- 25 and not one 31 listed now.

The weekend was amazing. Did a ton of gardening - mostly cleanup, but I did buy a new tree to replace a zone-pusher that didn't make it. Also did a short hike on Saturday near Bragg Creek. So nice to have good weather again after that extremely long winter.

It's already 22 today. Yay. Definitely leaving early today.

That's crazy that Calgary had an unusually mild winter - Saskatchewan had a colder and more snowy winter than we have had in years!

Looks like all the fruit I planted last year has made it through, my honeyberries are just about to leaf out.

I received my roses order from Corn Hill today, so despite the drying winds and +26 temperature, into the ground they went - with lots of water of course!

I'm tempted to plant my garden with how warm it has become, but I think I'll wait until next weekend at least.

This post was edited by weeper on Mon, May 6, 13 at 20:35

I actually was able to go outside and mess around in the flower beds. And i planted some onions, lettuce, radishes and mesclun mix in one of them! LOL Hoping for some green SOON!

HOLY CARP WE CAN EDIT POSTS NOW!??!

LOL Shazam, you've really been hibernating!

It never ceases to amaze me that we can have +24..then frost on the grass the next morning then back up to +23...lol

I am so with you! The temperature here fluctuates so much!! LOL! It's unbelievable.

The weather in Calgary has been very lovely. Now, at the risk of sounding like I am complaining, we really need some rain here now....! :-)

Everything is very dry. Some moisture would be nice!
But 4úC tomorrow morning?
Caroline

It was supposed to rain last night, but nothing happened, at least where I was.

Last year we had hail already! LOL.

We did get 4/10's last night, and they are forecasting quite a bit more rain for late this week. From the weather report I saw, it looks like at least part of Alberta will be getting it too.