Blooming storms in the Riegrov orchards in winter. How is it possible?
At the end of November last year, temperatures in Prague dropped to zero. And a wire started from the clouds the first flurries of snow to remind dry autumn Prague of the early onset of winter. In addition to the annual traffic complications, there was one more interesting thing that struck the people of Prague in connection with the snow. Blooming trees in Riegrovy sady in Vinohrady.
The first snow of the year in Prague complicated traffic in particular. (November 18, 2022) Aktu.cz
Did the new lights “help”?
And social networks were abuzz with questions, how is that even possible? “The sad thing is that this is probably due to bad lighting that wakes the trees to life at the wrong time. This is incredible destruction for plants and animals,” thinks user Markéta Ž. And Věra D. Ji is right about that: “That’s exactly what I think.”
Technology hl. m of Prague (THMP) indeed in 2021 they installed new lighting in six Prague parks. Among them the aforementioned Riegro sets. The lamps were free special LED lamps with dynamic lighting controlthat it is possible to change the lights during the night. And apart from the yellow-orange colors well known to the people of Prague, sodium lamps shine white light.
“Our goal was to it was directed primarily at the sidewalk and its immediate surroundings, so that we could limit lighting into the space as much as possiblesuch as green park areas,” said Tomáš Jílek, chairman of the board of THMP, about this a year ago.
That is why the new lighting should reduce the negative impacts on the growing greenery, the deputy chairman of the board of THMP Tomáš Novotný practically nonsense. “The lighting must meet the given light-technical parameters, and in the design of the new lighting system, the adverse effects of outdoor lighting are also assessed. In addition to the primary purpose of the design of the lighting system, i.e. ensuring the lighting requirements for the illuminated area from the point of view of human health and safety, care is taken to ensure the maximum reduction of the total load on the outdoor environment by artificial lighting“, he told Blesku.
“Public lighting generally achieves low illuminance levels (illumination intensity) at which it is impossible for the light from the street lighting to cause the flowering of trees or other plants” he added.
They can bloom even through the winter
Blooming trees under a blanket of snow are therefore no anomaly. On the contrary, according to the curator of trees of the Botanical Garden, m of Prague in Troja, Tomáš Vencálek, is nothing special. “It is probably a type of hairy cherry – Prunus subhirtella, or its cultivar,” he explained to Blesk. “This the species is typical for its early flowering.”
because the first frosts came to Prague with the first snow, and autumn was alternately cold and warm in Prague, it is not surprising that even at the end of the year the trees remembered the “opening” of spring. It is not a single tree or plant that is capable of this.
“It’s not in nature no exceptionbetween the earliest flowering shrubs include the Virginian elm (Hamamelis virginiana), which also blooms in November or sometimes already in October. The latter is the second elf soft (Hamamelis mollis) flowering in February. Other winter shrubs include, for example fragrant viburnum (Viburnum farreri), honeysuckle Purpus’s (Lonicera x purpusii), jasmine flowerless (Jasminum nudiflorum), skin heather (Erica carnea) and others,” Vencálek listed.
Snow covered the blooming hairy cherry trees in Riegro’s orchards. (November 19, 2022)
Author: Lightning: Martin Hykl Czech News Center