Warm days have gardeners ready to plant

COLONIE -- There are still two weeks left in March, but you wouldn't know it from the activity at area garden centers.

Temperatures have reached into the 60s and 70s lately and shoppers are out in force, looking for flowers and other plants as they get ready for the spring planting season.

"Our landscape man is getting tons of messages," said Cathy Vogt of George's Market & Nursery in Latham. But, she said, it's still too early to do too much yardwork.

At Valoze's Greenhouse in Latham, John Tommasini, one of the owners, worries that people who plant flowers now will end up being disappointed.

"If they buy it now and they bring it home, and the weather changes and it doesn't do well, I may lose a customer," he said Friday afternoon. "This is New York State. Wait a week and the weather will change."

At Faddegon's Nursery, vice president Bob Graves, said the warm weather has garden centers scrambling to stock up on flowers and other plants. "Everyone on the whole East Coast wants everything early," he said Friday.

Customers have called looking for pansies and other varieties of flowers. Some of these -- pansies and primroses -- are hardy enough to flourish in cool weather. But other plants could die if the temperature dips and the region gets another frost.

Faddegon's won't have its bedding plants ready for another six weeks, Graves said. Suppliers, meanwhile, are urging garden centers to take delivery early, cautioning that "this stuff is going to flower soon," Graves said.

At Valoze's, pansies have buds on them, Tommasini said, and some Johnny-jump-ups are starting to flower.

Tommasini, an avid snowmobiler, isn't all that happy about the turn of weather events. "This is March. This is absolutely ridiculous," he said.

And what does the National Weather Service have to say? Meteorologist George Maglaras in the Albany office says that as late as April 1, the average low temperature in the Capital Region is 32 degrees. It doesn't move above freezing until April 3.

So a return to average conditions could mean trouble for those who plant early.

Snow isn't out of the question, either. In 1982, the snowiest April on record, the Capital Region had 17.7 inches of snow. The following year, the second snowiest, 14.7 inches fell. And in May of 2002, 2.2 inches of snow fell on May 18.