DO YOU HAVE SOME SIGNS OF SPRING 2013?

Even with that very cold week, its been very non frosty here this winter. No car scaring, as coleup pointed out.

But even without 'frost on cars' there have been a number of freezing days here. I had 30 gallon block of rain barrel.ice to sell to any passing eskimos for a couple weeks there.

And on the few snow events I can clearly see where the sun side of the house warms up faster. It seems that the pansies there have never stopped blooming all winter. Its firmly z8.

I am afraid to comment on the lack of snow since March can always bring us a good Nor'easter and dump a foot of snow on us. I pray that does not happen.

I am in the process of planting cuttings this week and it seems to be never ending. I did six different varieties of Schlumbergeras Truncarta yesterday, three the day before, I still have three more to do plus all the jasmine and gardenias and then I am going to start some AV leaves. My daughter brought me one of her old plants so if I screw up it is no big deal. She has no idea what color it is but she brought it from her office. LOL.

Last night I used only one heater in the GH and it got a low as 45 deg, in there. dumb me.
All those cuttings I put in there yesterday and I forgot to turn on the second heater. Senior moments are becoming more frequent here.

Pray for the warmer weather to continue, the frost is heavy in here also but no snow. Rain and clouds and terrible wind. Can not have it all. Tomorrow, my friends, today is shot. Hopefully Spring will Spring here soon.

Are we expected to get snow on Wednesday?! A friend just mentioned it to me and I haven't looked in to it yet.

60% chance according to www.weather.com -- but those forecasts change too much to rely on.

This message was edited Mar 1, 2013 10:06 AM

JB, When the father of my twins died about 14 years ago, they got a Peace plant. I divided it into 3 pots at the time one for each of them and one back up plant that I kept. Over the years I would replace theirs on occasion from the plant that I kept. Last summer I sat it out on the patio and just completely ignored it, the pot didn't have any holes in it and it pretty much drowned. Bad mother that I am I truly think I was just sick of the thing at that time and really just let it go. You know that it is just about impossible to kill those things. So several months ago I got the call from my daughter telling me that she had really let her plant dry up and could I pot her up a new one. I did give a thought to just getting her a replacement but I told her that mine had died over the summer. I stopped by her house and there was not one single piece of green. The plant looked completely dead, but I said water it. A couple weeks later it still wasn't doing anything and I meant to bring it home but walked off without it. I was up there last week there are a few green leafs coming up. So I brought it home to baby it back to life. This time when I get it back I will need to put it on the priority list.

Good luck Holly!

My first daffodil are breaking open today.

OK~ I did not know this Thread existed--need to pay more attention to new Threads.
That being said--I will have to go out Monday and see what is coming up or blooming.

Sally--Take as good a picture as you can of your first WS bloom--and frame it!
Just for posterity!
How long have you had it? If I gave you a sprout--it was, probably, in its second year.
So you will have to add 2 to the amount of years you have gad it.

Want to know if the "7 years till bloom" is actually true. So--how old is it?

G.

My sign of Spring today was ssgardener's bright smile as she enthusiastically picked up the Japanese Maples (Ruth's Red and Full Moon) and Pinky Winky hydrangeas I got for her last fall. Her new fence area in the back is going to be beautiful. She said she would have them planted by tomorrow for sure!

I'm glad she was nonplussed by my not ready for suburbia yard! I even showed her the porch where I over winter my tropicals and she called it a 'greenhouse'! One of the bananas is unfurling a new leaf, and many of the plants stored there are awake and ready to burgeon forth in another month or two, when weather warms and settles.

Today I am glad that Spring comes and doesn't wait for us to be ready!

Thanks Terri for being such a bright spot in this grey day.

My sign of Spring today was spotting the 'Tete-a-Tete' daffodil bulbs from Sallyg that I potted up and stuck on the front porch. Green shoots have emerged!

I'm absolutely in love with hellebores. It seems everyday the blooms open up wider. I can't wait to get a whole colony started. :)

Coleup, that was so much fun! Your snowbells were so pretty! It was my first time actually seeing them in person, not on a webpage. I now "get" the obsession some people have over them. I bet they look cute next to hellebores!

I tried to dig a bit today but it was exhausting. I hadn't dug in my clay in awhile and had forgotten how difficult that was. Whew!

brrr it looks so cc cold er REFRESHING out there. my signs of spring do not like these clouds.
Most of this weekend has been sorting basement junk and tossing some and organizing other. Ho hum. Time to check on my one wintersweet bloom.

We had NO signs of Spring today. This cold, damp, cloudy miserable weather is wearing me down big time. I am so cranky I am not fit to be around. See you all when the sun comes out. JB

I'm seeing buds on hydrangeas! I hope they don't freeze in this snowstorm...

I "feel" ya JB!! Tired of clouds!

WHAT snowstorm, sag??

Oh, Sally, you might not get much snow so close to the bay.

But according to the Washington Post (Capital Weather Gang, usually pretty accurate), there's a 45% chance of >5 inches!

Oh no, I'm listening to the news right now. I am not in the mood for snow :(

I tossed a bunch of daffs into pots last summer I had dug them up and kinda forgot about moving them to a new location. They sat around in pots and at the end of summer I just tossed some dirt into a couple of pots and threw them in. I was so excited to see them putting up new shoots yesterday. Now I must remember to either get them planted or bring them to the plant swap.

Do you remember what kind Holly?
Looking for buds on Cheerfulness- will be a first for me, from aspenhill.
Just caught a weather report... the way it's felt last couple days, snow would not be a surprise!

No idea I think they may have been your plain pretty yellow. I can't even remember where I had dug them from. I just remember doing it.

It takes an iron will and cold heart to not save every daffodil bulb! ditto grape hyacinth, etc...

Here's the weather for this week--from Patch for the Baltimore metro area.

**********************************************************

Snowfall is likely overnight Tuesday in the Baltimore Metro area.

The week begins clear on Monday, but clouds could increase Tuesday before the snowfall that's expected mostly between 2 and 10 a.m. Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service forecast.

As of Sunday evening, there's a 70-80 percent chance of precipitation Tuesday and Wednesday, and there's a 60 percent chance Wednesday night, the forecast states.

High temperatures this week will vary from the low-40s to low 50s, with lows in the 30s or below.

Following are the forecast temperatures:

Monday: High in the lower 40s. Low in the upper 20s.

Tuesday: High in mid 40s. Low in mid 30s.

Wednesday and Thursday: Highs in upper 30s. Lows in lower to mid 30s.

Friday: High in the upper 40s. Low in the lower 30s

Saturday: High in the low 50s.

THanks Gita! I might get a delayed school opening out of it but am not hoping for the whole day off, in this county.

We have had the expected Hellebores, Crocuses and Snowdrops for a while, but yesterday while preparing for today's snowstorm I discovered that one of our winter-weary Pulmonarias was starting to bloom. What a surprise!

That pic is just lovely.

David, that is definitely a sign of spring coming. Have you ever seen one bloom this early before?

Cute little daffodils- perhaps Topolino?
Iris danfordiae(spelling?) first time I have had three blooms!
Snowdrops, been going awhile
Rosemary, cv from Chantell, blooms well

FInally working on my pictures files...I had to come back with this. THese darn Crocus tommasinianus are my earliest AND hardest to get a good picture. In early spring when they bloom, they usually get beat up by rain, or close up on any cloudy days. THis time I finally got them with really good light level.....first day open, fresh and intense, focused..very pleased with my pic quality finally. Well except for the huge piece of dried grass on the one flower LOL!!

This message was edited Mar 8, 2013 10:10 PM

let's try this one

Ha I like the iris danfordiae. I've never seen thatbefore. it is a streamer of yellow shooting up from the ground.

Nice, clear, in focus pictures, Sally. You must have laid on your stomach to get these....
Something I could not do....:o(

I really have not had anything to post here....The only think in bloom is my Wintersweet
and some lavender crocus, which seems to have naturalized in the lawn near it. How???
Do they make seed that blows in the wind? Do birds do it? Bees do it....(couldn't resist......)

A bunch of my small Daffs are all in bud in the small, circular bed where I, usually, keep my
big combo planter on the rotting birch stump. I think if I removed all the brick that is holding
up the pot platform, the whole structure will fall apart. Any suggestions on how to create a new one?

SO--I am just going to post a picture of my Wintersweet--soon to belong to Paul.
He will be coming to dig it up and take it home.....
The Tahiti Daffs, that were in that bed, have all been dug up and each clump is now in one gallon pots.

Need to do a garden-crawl--camera in hand......G.

Paul, There is a whole group of Reticulated and Dwarf varieties of Iris. I have some and would sure like to get some more. I may have some good pics of them from the Phila Show. Mine don't bloom near this early. I need to go check out my Choclate Vine, it blooms pretty early and I haven't checked it in a few days.

Holly, yea that's what I enjoy. There is always something new..a quick search on my phone didn't yield that many sources for anything other than iris danfordiae.

NOw that I've smelled ONE wintersweet flower- I cannot wait to smell a thousand. Paul you'll love it. And I still understand why Gita is getting rid of it. I love trying nw things and you can't when the same old thugs take up all the room.

Oh Gita, are you making room for more plants??? I think if all goes well, we will have some new ones coming your way. No promises until we see how the weather treats us in the coming months. Hugs. JB

BTW, We are going to make a "bird" garden and I would love to have some suggestions for bushes we can purchase to place in it. We have a large area we used to farm and instead of that we are going to try to attract more birds. It is all sun, so any suggestions will be appreciated. I want to remember to post this on the bird thread also. JB

I have a question--foe anyone.....

I went to Wallmart today and they had just gotten in their packaged Roses.
Whoever put the rack out, they were all turned away from the customer.
I spent a lot of "ouch" time tuning each rose around in the tray so that I could see
what the rose was.
I wasn't really shopping for myself, but I could have picked one up--they were only $4.67.
I was hunting for a white Rose for my Pakistani lady next door. She SOOOO wants a white Rose...

So--I pulled out all the white ones I found (All were "White Magic") and chose the two
better ones--going by the quality of the canes.
Saw a red one there that I have had for eons--"Proud Land"--my beautiful red Rose.
Should have picked up a yellow one for me. The one I have is measly--one stem--and so-so....

Anyway--my question: "Roses"--I bet you can help me!

As far as HOW to plant a rose, is there a difference between "bare root" and "Packaged" Roses?
I want o help/teach her plant these correctly. I want to show her how to prune back the tips of the canes.

Is there a difference in planting???? I would think that the packaged Roses are not, exactly, bare-root,
as they are in moist peat moss inside the packaging--but still--when you take them out--they ARE bare root.

The question I have is mostly how long, and IF, the roots need to be soaked.
On the packaging it says--1 hour. In my book on Roses--it says 2 hours if they are bare-root.

Thanks for any opinions......Gita

Well I have quite a few Hellebore's blooming but they sure aren't ready to be photographed. LOL
My Black Pussywillow is covered with catkins and they are getting nice an big.
I was hoping that the Five-Leaf Akebia would be blooming but not quite yet I do see a few small buds. The Crocus are going crazy in the Lamppost bed.
Paul are your Black Pussywillows rooting?

Holly---

I forgot to get the Black Pussy Willow cuttings from you att the Seed Swap.
I guess there was too much going on--and all the rush to get out of there
by 3PM--i just forgot.

If you could stick some small ones in a pot for me--I will be happy to get them at Jan's.

Thanks! Gita

I am going to be trimming mine and they are benormas. If you want some please let me know and I will put you on the list. We are late trimming because of the weather. Here are just a few of my many bushes. I started with two little cuttings and now I have some big old bushes and some little ones too. They grow like weeds but I love the burgandy color of the stems and the coal black catkins. Then they get the leaves and are beautiful all summer into Winter. I think they are one of the nicest bushes you can have in a yard, if you like that sort of thing.

Holly- hahaha it is really funny you asked. I was just inspecting them today and one has roots growing and even a green leaf coming out. I threw the rest out for fear their deadness would infect my survivor and gave it fresh water. Pretty wild.

Gita, I though for sure that you got them are you sure they didn't end up in a corner of your trunk. Doesn't really mater there are plenty to be had. I will definitely have more come spring swap.
JB, do you think you will make it to the swap? I would love to meet you and it will be in N.J. this year.
Paul, I do have a few pics of the Reticulated Iris from the show but they aren't very noticeable in these pictures. Best look will give you an idea of both the size and color of this blue variety.
Look at the middle of the picture and divide it into right side and left side. At the bottom of the pic you will see large blue crocus on the right side. You will notice on the left side a similar looking flower very close in color and size but slightly different those are the blue Reticulated Iris. You may also notice a few purple Reticulated Iris at the left edge of the blue, slightly closer to the bottom.