February Statistics

It's time for February statistics! Here Jennifer Comer, Senior Gardener - Grower, delivers trays of plugs to one of our five production greenhouses. The greenhouse production staff enjoyed the nice weather of the greenhouses last month as February was below average in temperatures (but not that far off!).


A tapestry of seed flats and plug trays in the greenhouses mimics the fields of the Midwest. February is when many of our plants begin! Outside we had all sorts of weather in February, from a high of 72F on February 4 to lows of 0F on three mornings. We still did not drop below zero out here at Powell Gardens, which makes it a mild month for plants outside.


The seedling dusty millers from an earlier blog did take on their characteristic silvery foliage in February! They are hardy annuals (sometimes surviving our winters) and may be planted out as early as late March. We put them in the cold frame or outside with protective covering at hand to harden off. They do not go directly from the greenhouse to in the ground.

February was a very wet month with 3.7 inches of rain. We are thrilled as this will help the deficit from last year and start us on good subsoil moisture for 2008. We had only 2.3 inches of snow here on the southeast side of the metro. Two days had highs in the teens, four days with highs in the 20s, 11 days with highs in the 30s, seven days with highs in the 40s, four days with highs in the 50s and one day in the 70s.

We all have been complaining about the cold but as long time volunteer Darlene Pollard stated: "It's the most normal winter we've had in years!"