Strange spring

After a pretty mild winter, one in which we didn't have a lot of snow and it was most certainly NOT the third coldest winter on record (like last year), the week of March 7 brought us 70-degree temperatures here in Philly. I know it was that week because I was on Spring Break from work and I was puttering outside in the garden for much of the week.

And then the first day of spring came, and we have since had three freeze warnings during which I first covered my fledgling sugar snap pea seedlings, and then I gave up.

We also had snow last weekend. I happened to be in Lancaster County, PA (Pennsylvania Dutch Country), where they call a springtime snow an "onion snow". The snow was really wet, and then we had another freeze that night so some emerging plants like my bleeding heart (below) were damaged.

You can see some of the bleeding heart flowers directly "above" the tulip are damaged.

For the second year in a row, my Eastern Redbud has bloomed. Last year, I had precisely two flowers on the entire tree. This year, I'm pleased with an entire branch of flowers. The tree heard me threatening to chop it down two years ago and is finally performing.

Completely unfazed by the strange weather, my creeping phlox is in full bloom and has been for a week or two. It's an entire month early, by the way, as it's usually in full bloom in early- to mid-May.

My Kerria japonica is also about a month early. It's right outside of my back door so it's nice to see.

I was able to move my pot of strawberries to the covered porch during the freeze warnings, so it's doing just fine now. The chives behind it in the photo below looked pretty dead during the "onion snow" (no pun intended) but have since rebounded.

We're less than a third of the way through 2016 and it's already been a very strange year as far as the weather and garden are concerned. How about where you live? Is it business as usual or are you also experiencing a strange spring?