Date: 04/05/2005

Number: 1

At long last, the snow melted back from the side of the huge boulder where my tulip garden is planted, and the first bulbs were emerging. I could not have found a more snowy place! Drifts were at least two feet high until the snow rapidly melted during the last week+.

My experiment
I planted another garden, 59 miles to the northwest. Those bulbs emerged about ten days earlier. But besides latitude, here's a list of other variables that were different:

Elevation: Norwich garden is 1,300 feet elevation
Temperatures: Though farther north, Champlain Valley is known to have warmer weather, due to open water in nearby Lake Champlain
Snow cover: More snow, due to drifting by wind. More snow at higher elevation, because of higher temperatures and more cloud formation. Melt rate accellerates when snow-

Exposure to sun: This affected temperatures and the rate of snow-melt.

Norwich, VT

Latitude: 43.8 Longitude: -72.3

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