Comments on: Spring has officially sprung

By: jjohannson

jjohannson — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:27:02 +0000

I said “happy spring” to my 75-year-old neighbor and California native this weekend, and he severely upbraided me. “It’s *not* spring until the rain stops falling. Then, it’s spring.” I said, but my daffodils are coming up, the cherry trees are blossoming, etc. And he said, “It’s not spring.”

Made me feel like the transplant I am.

By: Maureen Burke

Maureen Burke — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 01:32:36 +0000

We bought our house in 1980 because a Magnolia campbellii was blooming next door on Valentine’s Day. The deciduous Magnolias–the denudatas, campbelliis soulangeanas–usually bloom coincident with cherries and plums in the Bay Area.

By: Alan Tobey

Alan Tobey — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:59:00 +0000

Actually, blooming cherry trees are the official harbinger of springtime in Berkeley (exactly when the snows are piled deepest on our unfortunate eastern and midwestern fellow-citizens). Mid-Feb magnolias look more like a harbinger of global warming.

But of course — as the climate scientists keep telling us — climate is not the same thing as weather. So we may just randomly be experiencing about our tenth early-spring-weather year in a row.

By: Maureen Burke

Maureen Burke — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 00:49:00 +0000

Wowza. Looks like Magnolia campbellii, the most heart-breaking Magnolia of them all.

By: Rachel A.

Rachel A. — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:14:34 +0000

Agreed! It is spectacular. And makes one happy.