Summer has begun today, with sun in the morning and a very pleasent ten to fifteen degrees which rose up to almost hot plus twenty degrees. But of course this is only summer meteorologically - phenologically, that is: according to the plants growing, summer has begun this year already in late may and early june: this just for the record in case you were wondering why I'm talking about "summer" all the time.
This here of course - Allium scorodoprasum - is a summer plant:
And probably it's time to give a short summary about seasons according to phenology - here of course shown for Austria (you can of course give phenological seasons only by the plants growing in a region, so the Austrian phenological seasons only are valid to a certain degree for neighbouring countries - and they're entirely useless for Siberia, or Patagonia, or Galapagos or whatever):
- Pre-spring: hazelnut, snowdrop and goat willow
- Early spring: cornel and (in gardens) forsythia, then currants, later prunus species (cherry and damson trees, etc.)
- Full spring: apple trees and lilacs
- Early summer: grass flowering season, elderberry and hawthorn flower; haying season begins, autumn crocus seeds are ripe; strawberries are ripe, later cherries which already mark the transition to:
- High summer: chicory, potato flowering; currants are ripe, and grain crops are harvested
- Late summer: many fruits are ripe (early apple cultivars and many others, also wild ones like rowan); ericas are flowering
- Early fall: autumn crocus begins flowering; elderberries are ripe, dito hazelnut; later cultivar fruits are ripe
- Full fall: leaves are turning yellow and red (only with some species - first and foremost cherries - leaves turn red much earlier); oak acorns are ripe, dito walnuts and horse chestnuts
- Late fall: begins with the fall of leaves on most wild-growing broad-leaved trees
- Winter: all trees have shed their leaves (except for a very few keeping dry leaves till spring), growth of vegetation comes to a stop.
