October was cooler than normal in our neck of the woods, while November has been warmer; thus, the trees are confused. Some of them have broken dormancy enough to have budded out. The first photo shows buds on our little North Star cherry tree (I think they are mostly blossom buds) that I planted, bare root, in April 2003.
The next photo is of buds on our white bud tree that was transplanted into our yard in April 2019. They are probably all blossom buds.
Blossom production (and thus fruit on the cherry tree) will probably be sparser than normal this coming spring; but, as long as I keep the trees well watered throughout the winter, the trees should recover from the experience, nicely.
ADDITION OF 12/2/2020 10:59am - Leather Leaf Viburnum
Perhaps you can see the few dozen blossom heads in the photo, below. The second photo shows a closeup of one blossom head.
Everything is upside down and confused. I noticed some white blossom today. I couldn't see exactly what it was on but I'm sure it was the wrong time for it!
Posted by: Liz Hinds | November 23, 2020 at 02:40 PM
Liz--Interesting that this is not a local phenomenon. You did remind me that, frequently, our leather leaf viburnum bush blooms at weird times during the cooler months. I noticed a few blossoms on it a couple of weeks ago.
Posted by: Cop Car | November 23, 2020 at 03:46 PM
The trees are not confused, they DO twig what's going on : climate change.
Posted by: Ole Phat Stu | November 24, 2020 at 02:03 PM
Interesting - I would have thought most spring bloomers set their buds in fall and that they take their opening cues from length of daylight combined with temperature. As long as they don't start opening, they should be fine.
There are plenty of plants around here that set their flower buds in the late fall including rhododendron, azalea, lilac, spiraea and forsythia.
Posted by: bogie | November 28, 2020 at 04:56 AM
Although information on cherry trees is all over the place, what I found about redbuds (which I assume would apply to white buds) shows: "Redbud trees will set their flower buds at the end of summer into early fall for the following spring, so let's hope you see blooms next year" - when do redbud trees set buds?
Posted by: bogie | November 28, 2020 at 05:04 AM
Stu--It probably does tend to happen more frequently as our climate changes.
Bogie--Thanks for the link. Yes, our trees always set buds during late summer/fall; but, we are beyond the setting stage this time. In fact, just after I posted, the local news people had an arborist on the air talking about how we needed to keep our trees watered so that the stress of our drought doesn't add to the stress of the trees' early development.
Posted by: Cop Car | November 28, 2020 at 09:03 AM
My crepe myrtle has had problems in recent years between climate change and our drought.
Posted by: Joared | November 30, 2020 at 07:50 AM
Joared--Just checked our crepe myrtle. It's doing nothing; but, then, it is among the last bushes/trees to show greening during our spring. I'm adding photos of the leather leaf viburnum - that I took while out checking the crepe myrtle.
Posted by: Cop Car | December 02, 2020 at 10:59 AM
That viburnum is definitely confused!
Posted by: bogie | December 06, 2020 at 06:15 AM