When to Start Your Spring Planting
Saturday, April 16, 2011
But determining when to start planting in the spring can be a little easier if you keep three things in mind—native plants, chill hours, and plant phenology. Let’s look at these concepts and see their impact on your planting decision.
Native Plants
The term native plants describe plants natural to a given area. The term includes plants that develop, occur naturally, or have existed in an area for years. Native plants are a part of a cooperative community where several plants or species develop to support each other. Thus, their survival depends on each other. In the Northeast plants are deemed native, if it existed before colonization.
Take the silver maple tree. It’s considered native to many parts of the United States. The silver maple is among the fastest growing maple in the Northeast. It’s ideal for wet lowlands because it can easily recover from extended flooding. A medium to large tree, the silver maple is good for residential areas because of its thick foliage. Other ornamental trees native to New England are red maple, white pine, dogwood, and crabapple. Native shrubs include witch hazel, rhododendron, viburnum, and azalea. These are all good trees and shrubs to plant in the spring because they’re native to the area.
Chill Hours
When you plant in the Northeast, you must account for chill hours. This is the length of time at temperatures between freezing and 45 degrees F. a plant requires to re-start growth. Deciduous plants go dormant in the winter to survive the cold. The plant stays that way until it decides it’s warm enough to re-start growth. The plant wants to start growing as late as possible, so it doesn’t get frozen by a late frost. It also wants to get in a full season of growth and fruiting before going dormant again.
Plants have a process for telling when to start growing. The process accounts for the amount of above freezing temperature it needs to start growing. After sufficient chilling occurs, the plant awakens from dormancy, but may remain in a quiescent state until cultural conditions (i.e. increased daylight and temperature) are favorable for growth. Once the chilling requirement is met, soil temperatures need only rise slightly above about 45 degrees F. for as short a time as three days to spur growth.
Plant Phenology
Plant phenology refers to recurring plant and animal life cycle stages, such as leafing and flowering, agricultural plant maturation, insect emergence, and bird migration. Because plants are sensitive to small variations in climate, especially temperature, phenological records serve as a proxy for temperature to tell people when to plant. For example, viticulture records of grape harvests in Europe go back more than 500 years.
Observations of phenological events often indicate the progress of the natural calendar. In fact, many cultures have traditional phenological sayings that indicate a time for action or attempt to forecast future climate, such as “When the sloe tree is white as a sheet, sow your barley whether it be dry or wet.” Thus, phenological records can help you decide when to plant in the spring.
For more information on the phenological records of plants, consult the USA-National Phenology Network’s Web site. It has maps, visualizations, and educational materials about plant phenology. It also has a handbook on phenology you can download.
John Campanini is technical director of the Rhode Island Tree Council. Previously, he was Providence’s city forester.
For more information on spring planting or any of the trees discussed in the article, call the Rhode Island Tree Council at 401-764-5885 or go to its Web site: www.ritree.org.
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