Confused crabapple August 14, 2010

What the huh?

(Photo taken on August 13, 2010)

My spindly parking strip ornamental crabapple trees, which I keep threatening to remove but somehow never do, just did the strangest thing. Perhaps distracted by the recent and unusual-for-August spate of cool, wet weather, they put out a new bunch of leaves and, even odder, some more blossoms.

As far as I know, they have never done this before, and both trees are at it.

Has anyone else experienced this? Am I wrong to find it bizarre?? I’m not complaining – they look a little less terrible this way. Just puzzled.

Thorny Surprise March 1, 2010

Conventional wisdom has it that we should prune back rose canes around the time daffodils bloom, right? Well, spring came early to Seattle this year and I am way behind the earth’s pushed-forward clock already. Finally got around to pruning back my sad neglected roses last week even though at least some daffodils have been doing their thing for a while now.

While I was hacking away, I found this one really weird cane that was covered in a huge profusion of deep-red thorns. The rest of the canes were nothing like this.

Does anyone know what would cause the plant to produce something so odd? I almost left it, but it was 5′ tall and right in front of our living room windows, so I reluctantly chopped it down and put it in the yard waste with the rest of the clippings. Ah, the wacky and wonderful world of plants!