"I don’t recall seeing anything like this before."
Interesting cysts covering a young choke cherry tree.
Carmichael pointed to a tree that fell across one of the riverside campground spots, taking out a fence. There’s another on the opposite side of the path, branches strewn across an open patch of snow. They’re among the 1,000 high-priority trees the city wants to remove due to safety concerns.
Fireweed observed with flat, curled stem and many buds, indicating fasciation.
Local residents debated whether a massive release of spruce pollen, which accumulated on every surface—including car bonnets, picnic tables and the nearby Kachemak Bay—amounted to a “golden sheen” or a “yellow scum”. The fine dust turned the surface of the sea the colour of butter and left a bright, lemony line on shore that marked the extent of high tide and gave off a sickly sweet smell. This huge release of pollen might be yet another symptom of a rapidly changing environment.
As lower Kenai Peninsula temperatures have soared recently, local farmers and gardeners have concerns about how June’s lack of rain and steady warm temperatures will affect their businesses in the weeks ahead.
"They are extremely fresh-looking, as if it were the springtime."
We have over two weeks of cold windy weather. It started in mid April around the time of the big wind storm. And in relation of the wind storm on April 24th, Rick Thoman wrote: "Winds this strong in the Anchorage are rare at this time of year. An unusually strong storm for the season in the southeastern Bering Sea produced southeast strong winds blowing across the Chugach Mountains. However, being April, the temperature profile of the atmosphere close to the ground was more conducive than in winter for allowing the very strong winds aloft to reach down to the ground.
There is a spruce beetle outbreak in Southcentral Alaska. Since the beetles don't emerge for a few weeks, we might as well start thinking about the problem.
Elodea, a fast-growing leafy plant, is now in a roadside ditch at the marsh, and a response plan is in the works.
In Southcentral Alaska
Yellow Fungus (Phragmidium) on Wild Rose and other Plants
Windows have been open during the record heat and the interior of the house is also full of pollen, a thin layer can be seen on the floor near windows. Everyone, even people like myself who rarely experience allergies, are feeling the effects, burning eyes, runny nose, and cough.
The birch trees are producing sap earlier. (baseline post)
Elodea, an aggressive invasive plant, was discovered this month in the lake used by hundreds of floatplanes, raising fears that it will be spread to multiple sites within flying reach.
Early pussy willows - Anchorage, Alaska, USA
5-19-14 Poor air quality - Anchorage Alaska, USA
High spruce pollen levels causing eye, respiratory irrigation and nose bleeds.
7-19-12 Great gardening - Anchorage, Alaska, USA
STERLING, Alaska — Spent today tramping around the boggy depths of the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, which is about a three-hour drive south of Anchorage. Berg The group went there to see h…
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