Ken Lyons, 77, knows when strawberry plants used to bear fruit in Lebanon, N.J. In the 1980s, strawberries came within a few days of his son’s birthday on June 11. These days, Lyons’s strawberry plants peak in May. When his son, now 45, visited home for his birthday a few years ago, he was disappointed to find the strawberries already gone. Photograph of Ken Lyons's strawberries in bloom on May 13, 2023, weeks ahead of when they would have been in the 1980s.
Ken Lyons took this photo of his garden in Lebanon, N.J., on May 13. Michael Dornbrook, 71, knows when the magnolia trees used to bloom in Boston. As a student at MIT in the early 1970s, he remembers seeing their pink and white petals on his way to take his final exams in the second and third week of May. Now the magnolias often bloom in April.Michael Dornbrook took this photo on Hanover Street in Boston on April 16, 2019.Michael Dornbrook took this photo on Hanover Street in Boston on April 16, 2019.As global warming nudges temperatures higher, memories of the past offer an informal account of how the seasons have change