Statewide Iowa — Iowa’s rapidly changing range of weather conditions can pose a challenge for people — as well as for many types of plants.
Jeff Iles, a horticulture professor at Iowa State University, says the wide weather swings we’ve seen in the past year have had a significant impact on many trees across the state.
Some trees were blooming in mid-fall instead of during the spring — completely backwards from the norm. Other trees lost their leaves early or are showing other signs of stress. Iles says there’s no easy fix.
Since wet conditions promote a variety of tree diseases, Iles recommends planting trees that are known to withstand adverse conditions, such as choosing a bald cyprus tree for a flood plain. Just like Iowans wouldn’t likely try to plant palm trees or orange trees, which only thrive in tropical environments, Iowans -should- plant native trees, like boxelder, silver maple, red oak, prairie crabapple and the eastern cottonwood.
Plants that flowered this fall aren’t necessarily going to die, he says, but they likely won’t have a typical full bloom in the spring. Still, they’ll probably make it through the winter ahead just fine. Iles made his comments on the Iowa Public Radio program, “Talk of Iowa.”
