From the Shadow of the Tetons: The flowers are still growing like mad - odd for this time of year in Rexburg, Idaho

I walked through the Ricks Gardens at BYU-Idaho in my way to work this morning, and as I walked through I thought to myself...is it just me, or are the flowers looking especially good for this time of year? During my lunch break I took another stroll through the gardens, and this is what I saw - flowers in full bloom and still blooming all over the place!

As I walked along I ran into one of our horticulture faculty and our greenhouse manager, so I asked them if it's just me, or are the flowers in particularly good shape for this time of year. In response they said, "The magic ingredient is heat." Flowers love the heat.

Frankly, it's not that unusual any more for our first hard fall frost to hold of now until sometime in October, and we have flirted with the low 30soF only once or twice so far this fall. As you can see, the flowers are doing great! They are growing, are in full flower, and some are even still putting out new buds.

I asked if this was unusual, and they both confirmed that even without a hard frost, the flowers don't usually look anywhere near this good most years.

The secret ingredient? "Heat."

While it's difficult to link any weather event, like a warmer than average late summer, to global warming, it is fair to say that the current trend in global climate change makes it more likely for summer-like conditions to extend longer than historically normal.

The gardens look more like mid-July to me than mid- September...