tamarack

Two surprises in that post, though I don't doubt either. First, that sweetgum is native at 42-43 north. There was none at all in the woods around our NNJ home - first ones I ever saw were planted where my in-laws retired in CNJ, though its absence 50 miles to the north may be cultural history more than forest ecology. Sweetgum has bright red fall colors, though IMO not as vibrant as red maple. (No shame in trailing #1.) It also has abundant and slightly prickly 1" diameter seed balls reminiscent of sycamore, so some serious yardwork, perhaps. 2nd surprise is baldcypress rated at Zone 4, though it's native to southern Illinois which probably gets to -20 now and again. Since Chris is probably Zone 5B, it might be a good if unusual choice. I don't think it's native in the East north of coastal Virginia.

Quaking aspen doesn't do well in swampy areas, though it would probably persist there. Balsam poplar, its cousin, tolerates wet feet better but I'm not sure it would be available. Maybe some native red maple? Then with the ones in front you would have fall colors from late August in the swamp to near the end of October toward the street. I'd be wary of baldcypress unless one can find a cultivar that's proven hardy this far north of its native range. Either northern white cedar (sometimes sold as arborvitae) or the less common Atlantic white cedar are wetland approved. To respond to S&P's query on pruning tomatoes, I've always pruned to a single stem unless growing paste tomatoes, which don't get pruned or staked. In my location, "soon" comes before "many", as first frost date averages Sept. 19. About 3 weeks from today I'll pinch off the top to prevent our cherry tomatoes (only kind I'm growing currently) from setting any more fruit, so that those already set have a better chance of ripening in time.

I don't know if nurseries handle the native flowering dogwood - it often suffers from an anthracnose disease that is frequently fatal, so it may be quarantined. IMO it's even a nicer tree than the Kousa - blossoms at least as pretty and spectacular burgundy/purple fall color punctuated by bright red clusters of "berries" plus a unique "blocky" bark. (I may be biased as I grew up living on aptly-named Dogwood Trail in NNJ.) If red twig dogwood is the same species as the common red-osier dogwood, plant it only in places where you can easily control its spread, which is often done by runners extending through the duff (or mulch).

NNE did a little better, at least in Maine. Oddly, 3 of those 6 NYC ratters, 52, 54 and 55, had big dumps on Feb. 17-18. The 1952 event has been pushed back to #3 at PWM but it was a far more powerful storm in Maine than PWM's bigger snows of Jan 79 and Feb 13. When I read "Their Finest Hours" (have not seen the movie) I was reminded that the Maine Turnpike had about 1,000 stranded vehicles at the height of the '52 blizzard. Not much snow at CHH but it was plenty exciting.

To find another winter like 05-06 with no 6"+ storms I had to go back to 67-68 in NNJ. To find a third I'm probably back in the early 50s before I began to even measure the stuff. (Looking at the stats, winters 1949-50 thru 54-55 were a sixpack of ratters in NYC and anyplace in the general region.)

Those choices would be 2003-04 and 2007-08 up here. Dec 03 brought storms of 24" and 13" by the 15th and the rest of the winter only added another 35". Given the comparative regularity of snowfall thru the 4 snowy months, having more than half the season's production coming that soon is anomalous for sure. Then 2007-08's biggest event was 12.5" and only one other storm cracked 10, barely. But for nearly all 4 "winter" months (here) we saw 2 [or more] storms per week and finished with 142.3" and over 3800 SDDs.

48.2" when we average 90.6" - awfuller. I think some VT sites take the booby prize. IIRC, a couple places had their biggest 2015-16 snowfall on May 16, with about 4". I thought we were deprived here in 05-06 when we failed to have a 6" event; can't imagine not even reaching 4.

Several years ago a co-worker gave me a box full of black walnuts, probably 200-300 all told, from his trees on the midcoast. I fall-planted about 2/3 of them, 3 to a hole, and never saw any sprouts at all. Nor did I see signs of their being excavated by local rodents. That co-worker also has had no success in getting any to grow. A side note: There was a half-full 5-gal bucket of the nuts after I'd planted both of my open areas. For temporary protection I slid a 2nd bucket into the 1st. Red squirrels chewed an inch or two from the top edge of the lower bucket, trying (unsuccessfully) to get at the nuts. Those critters had never been within 50 miles of a black walnut yet they certainly knew good eats when they smelled it.

Either that or a gall. Some are caused by disease and others by insects (and the bug would be inside or there would be an exit hole.)

Absolutely. Or one can stumble into success. A few weeks after moving to our present location in mid-May 1998, I moved a slightly damaged (by our dog) balsam fir from our shady side yard to the sunny front. It was then a misshapen 2' tall, and now is a near-perfect cone about 35' tall with branches spreading over 15' at the base. It's about 12" at 4.5' off the ground - "about" because I don't care to fight my way into the center of those branches and then goo up my diameter tape with fir pitch. Getting 12" RA in the month following the transplant surely helped, as I don't think I watered it at all. (And it's grown to the point that I would consider donating it for some municipal Christmas tree if the town would do the cut and haul.)

Cannot stress this too much. Even with proper root-pruning and good care, up to 90% of roots stay behind when a tree is lifted at the nursery.

That Christmas night + storm is CAR's biggest at 33" and change. Same at Fort Kent where the co-op recorded 32". Eastern had a member from FK then and he measured 37". Given the one-a-day and seemingly lackadaisical reporting from the co-op, I think the higher number is more accurate.

2005-06 was my only winter in the past 50+ years that failed to produce a storm 6"+. It's a member of my bottom 5 Maine winters, with 1973-74, 1979-80, 2009-10 and 2015-16.

After MWN got 500"+ in 1968-69, folks were talking about the Tuckerman's glacier. There were estimates that Tucks had about 90' in places. That my have been the thru-the-summer year.

Finally floated the canoe in North Pond (Belgrade Lakes.) Lots of small white perch but I was after what's eating fish that size. Never a bad day on the lake. - saw a fawn bouncing thru the brush next to a shoreline lawn and had a large snapping turtle surface within 5 yards of me, twice. Water is cloudy with algae so couldn't see the whole animal but its head looked like the 40-pounders I caught in NNJ eons ago.

Stat padder.

May here was 0.7F BN, with the max =0.3 and min -1.7. Highest was 88 on 5/27 but the warmest mean/min was 5/29 with 84/66. Coolest was 23 on 5/13. Only 2.45" precip, 60% of average, and only 0.04" in the 2nd half of the month. The 3.2" snowfall on 5/9 increased my 22-year May total by a full order of magnitude, from 0.3" to 3.5". First snow season anywhere, including Fort Kent, that had 7 months with at least 3" snow. This in a season with BN total snowfall and barely 80% of average SDDs.

Looks like SDDs at the stake will finish pretty close to the average. Here SDDs were 20% below avg, makes up a bit for 18-19 which had 91% AN. Leaf out here is near 100% on aspen, 80% on beech-birch-maple, 20% or less on oak and ash. Typical species sequence and probably near the average dates thanks to huge catch-up wx.

Highest I've seen, and that part of eastern Maine was the jack (for the US, might've dumped more in New Brunswick.)

About 25 miles to the NE from Lee, Orient reported 14". They're on the border with Canada, right where the squiggly border (East Grand Lake and trib) turns toward the north. Missed all the squalls, as they slid south while the precip that dumped on NE Maine stayed just to my north. However, 3.2" on May 9 warrants no weenie complaints.

Last time NYC had a sub-40 temp in May was 1978. Last time they had 34° as late as 5/9 was...never, at least not since Central Park began keeping records in 1869. Still flakes in the air (and not just from the trees dumping) but accum is done unless we get a squall later. WCI's about 20 (teens in Aroostook) - happy May!

Cool! IMO, 6"+ icicles on May 9 is more rare that 6" of snow in May. Finished with 3.2", with the 1.2" after 7 AM only 0.07" LE - 17:1 snow in May. If the Farmington co-op git as much as here, it would be their biggest May snowfall in 57 years and 4th biggest ever measured, POR 127 years. If the changeover to snow had occurred at 10 PM instead of 2-3 AM, we'd probably have had closer to 5", but still the biggest May snowfall I've seen.

Back to S- with small flakes, another 1" of fluff since 7 for 3" total, more than any May snow in my 10 years in Fort Kent. (Though had I still been there in 1996, my 970' location would've had 10+ on Mother's Day weekend.)

2.0" of 9:1 snow at 7 AM (after 0.15" of RA/mix that didn't stay on the board.) Nicest dendrites yet now drifting down, and temp just dropped a degree.

22" and 9+ pounds - that's a really fat fish! (Though the estimator equation - length*girth*girth divided by 800 - works out to 9.9 lb.) Many years ago (the year Lauri Rapala's lures became widely available in the US) I caught a non-skinny 22" largemouth that weighed 5 1/8 pounds from the nearby NNJ lake.