It's begining to look a lot like springggg!

Everywhere you look!!!
And its' a month or two, too early still!

I had Brugs, Figs & Hydrangeas
with their buds breaking open last week (HAD being the Key Word). Our 29 temp. the other night end that, everything fried again!! Today 72 with lows in the 50's tonight!!

Honeybee

Ummmmm, well, here - -9 degrees and the wind chill is -33 degrees (the coldest I have ever felt in my life). 72 degrees sounds like a distant memory.

check out what's blooming in my nephew's bulb tub. He planted them thanksgiving weekend.

I'd do anything for 60 deg temps. It is 5 deg here with a windchill way lower. I am chilly even with the woodstove roaring... brrrrr Count your lucky stars to be Soooooo warm

They talked on the news this morning for people to conserve energy,they were afraid of another rolling blackout,now that would be scary with all the low temps you all up north have been having!Keep safe and keep warm!

Doesn't look like spring here. A year ago at this time we had had such a mild winter that the fellow who works for me and i were out digging soil out of pathways for my new last year Woodland garden area. This year you can't even see the paths!!!!!Donna

It has been 0 here for literally three days now. At night it gets down to -20-40 with the windchill. We're right in the valley, So The hills of Bristol are covered, and it is cold. My roomate hates the cold and was calling for rations the other day. He thinks he's gonna freeze to death. I told him to start planning a vacay for next winter. I personally don't mind. I love all four seasons that we have:)

I don't know guys....I'm kinda bummed just looking around at all this dormant crab grass and clay soil!!! I have tons of work to do that doesn't involve the first pretty bloom! What a way to start the spring!!

This is the time of year when all of us who buy those overpriced, tiny-urban-lot properties in California remember why we live here.

In bloom are citrus, gazanias, iris, iberis, groundcover roses, viburnum, euryops, argyranthemum, abutilon, osteospermum, leptospermum, nemesia, alstroemeria, passiflora and hardenbergia vines, callas, cestrum and begonias. Sounds like a lot but actually isn't. The garden really is in the doldrums of winter just before the real spring arrives in a couple of weeks, with the noxious but pretty weed Oxalis per-caprae that is our confirmation that the garden is really going to get started.

I walk around my house every morning, and yes, I have to pull weeds which are also springing up everywhere!

jkom, it looks better than a foot of snow! What is the cage looking thing in the lower left of the picture? When I saw it I thought it looks like an upside down wire hanging basket, the kind you line with spaghnum moss, but it would also be good for a support for a plant that doesn't want to stand up by itself.

We'll see spring here in April......

Jkom,I'm outside looking for a dandlion in bloom,now thats wanting spring to hurry up!!!LOL.
Irt seems were starting that roller coaster ride with the weather,right before spring arrives,Temps up in the low fifities a few days then back down in the thirties a few days,back and fourth back and fourth.

But it is still JANUARY here and I won't see anything pretty like that for at least another two months or so. AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG!

;~D

LimeyLisa Kay

LOL Tropicman!

Not in our neck of the woods!

Well maybe a crocus or 2!!I've had them bloom at this time before,then a bad snow storm came and got them,well I checked the daffys again,and there not moving,just poking there heads up an inch out of the ground .
There probaly looking for Philadephia Pete or Phil,the groundhog!LOL!!

MaryE, you are exactly right, it is an upside-down hanging wire basket. I do indeed use them as plant supports although I have switched to the green wire ones as being slightly less obtrusive-looking!

The one in the photo is over a young euphorbia as our soil is so rich some plants just flop over, and I wanted to make sure this one gets a little help. Most recently I have been using them for freesias as I've noticed they tend to definitely 'lean' over as they come up.

I can't believe how expensive plant support hoops are in the catalogs, although I covet those v-shaped tomato ladders sold in the Gardeners Supply catalog!

Here's a photo that shows even more of the flowers. Kindly excuse the red concrete mushroom, it's a family joke that is going to be hidden in the backyard as soon as my husband gets off sick leave!

You have a nice combination of plant forms, colors, and textures. What's the story on the mushroom, you have me curious? Or maybe that is snoopy.

The mushroom story is this:
We installed complete new landscaping over the last two years. Inside the house it's a pretty sophisticated contemporary interior, but outside we like the 'cottage garden' look.

My husband's family is of very nice, middle-class Asian immigrant background. Their taste and mine do NOT mix. I have gotten some really hideous presents from them over the years, LOL!

I'm very particular about the garden ornaments we put in. I'll search for a long time to find just the 'right' item, and most are Asian in style. However, in a fit of whimsy -- this is all I can attribute it to, normally my husband has excellent taste -- he decided that a red mushroom with white dots would be a 'cheerful' addition to the front yard. I said NO WAY, over my dead body, or words to that effect. I said them loudly, in public, every time he talked about it.

As is his wont, he kept mentioning it, just to tease me. Unfortunately his mother took him seriously, and when we threw him a big 50th birthday party last year, in she comes, all proud and excited, with just the mushroom he had talked about! My comments about 'over my dead body' never registered with her. She really thought I was going to like it too.

It would have gone straight into the furthest reaches of the backyard -- preferably hidden behind a large bush -- except for one thing. Eight days after the party, my husband suffered a minor stroke. He's been off work since). I couldn't leave it inside the house anyway, since it's concrete and very heavy, not the kind of thing you want to trip over. So I did put it in the front yard, and told him it was there to cheer him up. I said it could stay there until he was well enough to go back to work -- which happens tomorrow, in fact.

My husband feels it looks cheerful. I told him he could put it in any garden bed he takes care of. Since I currently take care of the entire garden without his help, that ends the discussion!

That mushroom is pure class maybe it needs a couple just smaller to compliment it. Nice touch it fits in so well.

I thought about walking around mine with a golf club,just to entertain the neighbors!LOL

Tropicman nothing around here looks like spring.Just yesterday I got to play like a Nascar driver as nine cars around me went off the road because of sleet. The real reason they crashed was speed not the fact that the road was icy.

Wont be spring for a couple more months here. Ernie

Ernie,not here either,freezing rain now,expecting 2 to 4 inches of snow tonite!!
yeah and spring comes there before it gets here too!
Just heard on the news,Boieng Wichita is up for sell here!!!

Boeing raped Seattle and now Wichita next year some place else. Big business is without heart next they will apply for tax credits for making jobs in developing nations. Crazy politicans will take their cut for themselves then give it to them.Ernie not a boeing fan.

Me either!!But where I work,there shipping jobs to Mexico,like the U.S. was going under for good!
This is what I build!

Tropic I work in a shipyard we build quality Tugs most hi tech,barges,factory trawlers. And hi speed 40 knot plus aluminum passenger only ferrys. forty knots is fast for a 140 foot boat. For all you non seafarin readers a knot is a mile and an eight.

In plain sight of everyone looking at it we paint made in the USA on under an american flag.Ernie

Tropic I work in a shipyard we build quality Tugs most hi tech,barges,factory trawlers, and hi speed 40 knot plus aluminum passenger only ferrys. forty knots is fast for a 140 foot boat.

For all you non seafarin readers a knot is a mile and an eight. So eight knots is nine miles an hour and so on.

In plain sight of everyone looking at it we paint made in the USA on under an american flag.Ernie

I hope you continue to paint USA too!

I hope we continue painting those letters and the flags to as it means I still have a job to pay taxes with.

On the way home tonight I spied a couple pussy willows budding out but no leaves yet which is normal.

I dug down and checked the garlic and it has grown spikes but still has four inches to go befor it breaks out.

There are a few spring bulbs starting to show some leaves comng out but not many and the quail are singing so spring is in the air but not enough to smell only a few little sniffs. Ernie

Here a sniff there a sniff,sniff is a start!
Where having a whiteout tonight!!!
No sniffs here!!

JKOM, I love the mushroom! It would fit right in at my house. We love things like that, and are into oddities and one-of-a-kind garden trinkets. DH is a buddhist, so we will be putting in a meditation garden as soon as we get out of this darn rental house.