There are some plants that are easily fooled by brief changes in the weather. In my yard, the butterfly bush (Buddleja davidii) is that plant. When the first hint of warm weather arrives, as it did this past week, the leaves explode with abandon. Every warm day above 50 degrees, these appendages appear to double in size. Their emergence from slumber beats that of snowdrops or muscari with unfortunately bad results. Because we are still in January, I know that this bush will get slapped down in the coming days. It can often recover from one or two false starts but more than that becomes a death sentence. But because this bush self-seeds so shamelessly, it is all too easy to find a replacement progeny.
It’s not just the plants that are confused, however. The distinct smell of skunk greeted me the other morning when I went out for the paper. Squirrels are chasing each other around trees and bushes in the woods. And a lone fox cuts through the yard by the feeder scaring away the lunching birds. They soon return upon the fox’s departure.
This is the ebb and flow of Winter nowadays where long, hard frosts are less common and confusion is rampant.
