Just 3.5C warmer

This morning I was up and in the garden by 6:15.  It's amazing the people and dogs you meet when you change your morning schedule.  There was a gal walking an enormous black furry dog, who said, she was hoping we'd bump into each other at some point because she wanted to know how on earth did I get the rosemary in my vegetable garden to winter over.  I told her it was our unbelievably warm winter, and not some brilliant garden-trick I'd devised.  I was as amazed as she was that this former annual herb seemed to be perennial.  Throughout the garden is evidence that it really doesn't take much of a shift in temperature, to move something from a Pretend Zone to a real one.

According to the Environment Canada climatologist, the year has been just 3.5 degrees warmer than past years.  Just warm enough so that every hydrangea that blooms on second year wood is blooming; bugs and blossoms seem to be out of cycle; and butterflies that normally don't make it onto this side of Lake Ontario, are having a grand time in my garden.  This fierce weather has been rough on my spring bloomers - they turned into sad little sticks weeks ago.  Strangely it even appears too hot for the tomato varieties I'm growing, none of them seems to be putting on fruit the way they normally would.

The plants that like it hot like Blue Chiffon Hibiscus from Proven Winners is especially pretty this year.

And, roll the shark in the water music, guess which bug doesn't seem to mind the heat, the dry, the humidity....it's time for the J.B.B.O.D. (Japanese Beetle Bucket of Death).

This was yesterday - this Hemerocallis - tag long gone rarely blooms two at a time.  Notice how well the Chasmanthium does in this silly weather......  You know it never self seeded before.  I'm thinking we've stepped over the line - now verging on way too much of a good thing.

One from the Chicago series - such a pretty red.

Can you believe this - the old come-with-the-house phlox - completely defeated by the heat.

I've never seen such a wild exfoliator like this Heptacodium - I'm finding bits of him meters from the trunk.

Why do they always stand on the least attractive blossom?

This is a volunteer of a Nicandra seeding I did several years ago - never really got any 'Splash of Cream' as the packet said, but am enjoying these meter high plants.  Talk about taking hot/dry conditions - they're doing brilliantly.

Saw this last night and wondered just how many would be in bloom this morning.

Not bad.

Hosta montana macrophilla feeling a little sun damaged.  And a grocery store Easter hydrangea from many years ago.  Who knows what it is, but it is the most drought tolerant one I've ever had.

And finally, the view down by the lake - it felt like we were in the tropics.  And who knows, in a few years, if this temperature climb continues, maybe we will be?