The King of Green is Cold

Winter has descended with a white blanket over the lawns in Hamilton and the cold is numbing at times.

The warm weather in December and January was unusual. I drove by a lawn in December after a few days of sunshine and saw a few dandelion plants with seed heads blooming. I swear I had driven by that way a few days earlier. Yet, I could not remember seeing any yellow flowers. I wondered if the dandelion seed heads had been sitting encased in their post-flower stage just waiting for some warm weather. If the weather hadn't been warm in December, would they have bided their time until the spring. Was this an effect of the "El Nino" winter that we are supposed to be getting? Will the dandelion puffs that dispersed their seeds in December result in more weeds or fewer weeds next spring.