Quoted: Madison’s freezing temperatures are arriving about a month behind normal, said David Stevens, curator of the Longenecker Horticultural Gardens at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum.
Wisconsin’s unseasonably warm fall has had an impact on animal and plant life, including the arboretum’s lilacs, which usually bloom in the spring.
“While it’s not uncommon to see a few flowers pop on these common lilacs in late summer, early fall, this year was pretty extreme,” Stevens said. “We’re seeing quite a few flowers throughout our collection that we normally would not see.”