Winter 2025 decides to make appearance

Up until mid-January, the winter of 2025 had been very mild in the Walla Walla Valley. The coldest temperature recorded to that point was only 26° F (-3° C). Most daytimes were 38° to 52° F (3° - 11°C). Many of the fuchsias testing in the hardiness test garden still had at least a little foliage hanging on. Very few plants had there stems frosted to the ground. It had been warm enough that buds had broken and were growing on some of the varieties. I was excited that it might be the first time in the 15 years of living here that there would be a start in the Spring with growth on last years stems.

That hope was squashed when temperatures started a decline about the 15th of January. Between then and the 5th of February, Daytime highs were regularly around 36° F (2° C) with night times dipping down to as low as 20° F (-7C). Then it got cold. The local region had its drop down into its typical USDA zone 7A winter when the temperature began to plummet on February 6th. Between the 6th and the 15th there were no days where the high was above freezing and lows went down as far as 3° F (-16° C). Even with a 4 inch (9 cm) cover of snow blanketing the ground that gave the fuchsia crowns a little insulating protection, the frost line (depth of frozen soil) was close to 4 inches (9 cm) deep.

It's now the 20th of February. The temperature has risen above freezing. The area has gone into a warm spell. The snow is melting and the ground is thawing. The leaves have frozen off all the plants and I'm sure the stems have frosted to the ground. It's too early to tell to what extent the fuchsias growing in the garden will eventually be affected by the freeze, but that's what this hardiness testing is supposed to show. I'm confident that there will be many of the new fuchsia varieties that will survive to flower another day.