Ben Butler checks out blueberry buds at Butler’s Orchard on Wednesday. (Photo: Steve Burns/WMAL)

Steve Burns
WMAL.com

GERMANTOWN, Md. – (WMAL) While everyone was enjoying the unusual February warmth, Ben Butler was getting nervous.

“People going for walks and playing outside and enjoying the nice weather, and that’s great,” Butler said. “But for us, it’s deceiving to our crops.”

Butler’s Orchard in Germantown, a family-run pick-your-own operation going on its 66th year in business, boasts strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, and tart cherries for picking in late spring, but those blooms that did get deceived by February’s imitation of spring are now getting threatened by March’s abrupt return to winter.

“They don’t care what date it is. They wake up when the weather’s right,” Butler said. “The blueberry stage is about two or three weeks ahead of where it should be.”

They would be able to survive freezing temperatures, but only down to the teens, he said.

“I expect that we’re probably losing 20 to 30 percent of the blossoms at this point,” Butler said. “The margins are small on some of these crops anyway. To take a blow like that before you even see a flower is painful.”

Even more painful may be the burden of telling disappointed customers that their output fell short.

“Trying to explain the reason behind it isn’t always easy,” Butler said. “People don’t accept the answers the way Mother Nature gives them sometimes.”

Strawberries are still doing okay, and the snow may actually be a help to provide an insulation blanket to keep their temperature stable in the low 30s. However, if weather patterns continue throwing the orchard curveballs every winter, Butler said it may be time to start thinking about diversifying further and focusing on more lower-risk crops.

Hysteria has been growing around a related problem in the District – the blooming and possible premature death of the city’s iconic cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin. National Park Service officials say the blooms may be in danger with temperatures getting down into the low 20s as their namesake festival begins this week.

“If nothing else, they’re pretty. But for us, these blooms and perennial crops we grow, they’re our livelihood,” Butler said. “It just kind of keeps you humble, that you’re at the mercy of Mother Nature.”

Copyright 2017 by WMAL.com. All Rights Reserved. (PHOTO: Steve Burns/WMAL)