Beware the buds of March: Why early tulips and cherry blossoms are a growing concern | CBC News (2024)

Natalie Stechyson · CBC News

· Posted: Mar 20, 2024 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: March 20

Senior landscape architectTina Liuisresponsible for up to 700,000 tulipbulbs planted by theNational Capital Commission (NCC) each year inOttawa.

Typically, those tulips would startblooming inApril, in staggered cohorts, sothe120 flower beds she oversees at30 different sites are awash incolour in time for the hundreds of thousands of people whoflock to Ottawa for the Canadian Tulip Festival eachMay.

But this year, in mid-March, some of the tulips are alreadypoking out of the groundby a good two inches, putting them onschedule to bloom one-and-a-half weeks to two weeks early, saysLiu, who has overseen thegarden beds with the NCC for the past15 years and says the bloom times have been creepingearlierfor the past five years.

"We have seen the effects of climate change," Liutold CBC News. "We have to be really responsive to Mother Nature with these early springs."

• Just Askingwants to know:What questions do you have aboutpreparing for the wildfire season this year? Are you concerned about air quality?Fill out the details onthis formand send us your questions ahead of our show on March 23.

While some may be happy to seetulips already poking up in Ottawa and Calgary andcherry blossoms blooming ahead of schedule in Vancouver assymbols of spring,ecology and horticulture experts say it's a concerning sign of an increasingly warming planet.

Globally, last month was the hottestFebruaryon record, averaging13.54 C and breaking the record set in 2016 by about an eighth of a degree,according to the European Union climate agency Copernicus.

"Early spring feels great when you're walking around on a beautiful spring day, but it doeshave consequences for the plantsand theecosystems,"said Elizabeth Wolkovich, an associate professorof forest and conservationsciencesat the University of British Columbia, and aCanada research chairin temporal ecology.

"It, to me, portends to even bigger issues in terms of what's coming this summer for wildfires, and what it means for sea levelrises and thosereally global consequences of climate change."

Early spring

Reportable spring events, like when plantsstart flowering or leafingand whenbutterfliesemerge,have been shifting to earlier in the season for the last 30 years,saidWolkovich, explaining that this isbecause they're stronglycued to temperature.

And because the North is warming faster than the global average,Canada is experiencing more climate change than many other countries, and spring is arrivingsooner, she noted.

According to data from the CBC Climate Dashboard,most major cities in Canada saw higher-than-average minimum temperatures over the last 30 days.

Of the 48 cities CBCanalyzed, only 13hadlower-than-average temperatures. The highest temperaturescompared to the historical average were found in Thunder Bay, Hamiltonand Windsor, Ont.

Insouthern Ontario, Rodger Tschanz, a horticultural technician at the University of Guelph in the department of plant agriculture, says he's seeing earlysigns of spring in his gardens. For instance, winter aconite, a yellow flower he normally sees blooming after the snow melts in late March, has been blooming since late February.

"Crocuses are blooming in mid-March when I would normally see them bloom in early April.Primroses are starting to bloom in mid-March—again, I would expect to see these starting threeweeks later in the garden," he said.

In Vancouver,Wolkovichsays she sees evidence inmagnolia trees that arealready blooming on her street, and the famed cherry blossom season starting earlier each year.

In the U.S.,Washington,D.C., just recorded its second-earliest bloom time for its cherry blossom trees,almost two weeks earlier than the peak bloom a decade ago.

WATCH |D.C. cherry blossoms bloom early:

'Big uptick in earlier bloom times'

Elisabeth Beaubien, a plant ecology expert in Edmonton, has been tracking bloom dates in Alberta for decades. In a 2011 article in the journal Bioscience,she noted that over the last 70 years, the bloom dates of two of the earliest-blooming spring plants — the prairie crocus and trembling aspen — had moved forward by two weeks.

In the paper, she explained this was a biological response to climate change. Now,after anexceptionally warm winter, thetrend is continuing this year,Beaubientold CBC News.

"I think we're going to see a big uptick in muchearlier bloom times," saidBeaubien, who has been running a program called AlbertaPlant Watch for 37 years.

The program allows citizens to monitor flowering times for various plants to contribute to annual reports on 26 species. Its website notes a trend toward earlier plant development over the last 100 years in centralAlberta.

It's a trendrecreational gardeners are noticing, too. Kirsten Mann has been an avid gardener since she was achild, and said she'snever once seenher flowers start pushing through the earth before April.

But this year, by mid-March the 34-year-old from Kemptville, Ont., hasalready seentulips, daffodils, crocuses and bluebells sprouting up.And while she says it's nice to see life popping upin the yard, it's also also a little nerve-racking in terms of global warming.

"Itmakes me think also, 'What canwe do to counter that?' "Mannsaid.

"And I think gardening and growing our own vegetables and plants is at least a simple wayto contribute."

WATCH | Spring is here... and so is another globalheat record:

In Ottawa, Liuhas been adjusting her tulip strategies to keep upwith temperatures.

When she started with the NCC 15 years ago,about 40 per cent of the bulbsplanted eachfall were for tulips that would bloomearly in the season.

By staggering those with bulbs that would bloom later in spring, the flower beds would stay full all season.

But now, only 15 to 20 per cent of the bulbs they plant are early bloomers, and the rest arelate-season bulbs. The goal is to extend the display season as long as possiblesopeople can enjoy the flowers, she said.

"We just deal with nature," Liu said.

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