Hello friends!

The return to normalcy after the holidays is in full swing now, well almost! Return to old routines and schedules has us effortlessly gliding through the month of January 2020 just as quickly as the months which preceded it. The *ONLY* unusual aspect greeting us in the new year – the total lack of winter! There have been a couple dustings of snow over this winter season thus far, merely transient in the coming and going, and all too much fleeting! Instead of white blankets laying upon the landscape, we’ve had buckets and buckets of rain, interspersed with occasional bouts of windy weather. All of it entirely warm. warmish, unseasonably mild, abnormal, unusual. Plus-temperatures for so long, we’re now wondering if winter will ever make a visit!

While I’m happy to report Lapland has snow, you can see from the graphic, and by reviewing the next 10-day forecast, we in the southern region of Finland (Uusimaa) are again without snow and the typically expected winter temperatures.

 

You can read more about the forecast here and here. So just what’s going on with this crazy Finnish weather anyway?? Wish I knew!

Meanwhile, the garden looks pretty much like it did in November! Not sure what the plants are thinking, but I’m sure they are a bit confused and not sure if they’re supposed to stay asleep or whether it’s time to wake up!  Thankfully I haven’t spotted any tulips poking up yet, but my guess is they aren’t going to be too far off if the situation remains the same through January and into February. The rose bushes are still leafy and green and I spotted new growth on a few!

On January 11th we had a day of frosty conditions, where everything remained frosty white for 24 hours, but then it warmed up and that all went quickly away.

This is how it looks right now.

While looking for information relating to the present warm period, and specifically if there was anything discussing the rain amounts we’ve been getting, I came upon the following article, Finland’s Changing Climate authored by the Finnish Meteorological Institute which provides quite a good view on things.

As a ‘nature person’ ‘gardener’, ‘garden lover’, etc you can possibly understand why I might be slightly interested (**concerned**) in what the ‘ell is going on with the weather!!

This is also the time of year I often ‘used to’ get garden envy. There would be endless examples of photos swamping my social media with evidence of spring and the wonders of garden renewal from places throughout the UK and the Southern Hemisphere. All that garden joy would put me in a right funk about my drab and lifeless garden spaces buried in heaps and mounds of snow. But this year, no garden envy! Instead, I’m feeling rather worried about the state of things to come; if things continue along on this trajectory.

I was reading a Guardian article about wildfires, take a look here. What do you think about the current global weather situation?  How is the weather changing where you live? How are these changes affecting plants growing in your region, have you noticed any changes? How does this information change or affect how *you* garden?

I’d really like to know how you are coping with these changes and what ideas, strategies you are using. Are you unbothered and unaware of any differences? I’d like to understand how things are where you live. Please let us know!

That’s it for me, I will await the pouring in of responses! Please take a moment to comment and reply.

Thank you and happy gardening!