The garden begins to awaken

Very pretty, gumlla!
:) Donna

Donna, yes it's an evergreen clemantis Clematis Armandii . Here is a link to another thread of mine with additional pictures if you'd like.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/482567/

Very pretty daff Kaleem :-)

Thanks for reminding me, Riker. I thought it was pretty on that thread to....lol.
:) Donna

:-)
My favorite saying is:
"Of all the things I've lost in Life, I miss my mind the most."
LOL

Marc

Too true. I've lost mind long time ago and have never found it....I just pretend...lol.
:) Donna

:-) Me too....I think (hehehehe)

RikerBear,

Are you watering your bulbs? And if so, how often? I don't ever remember having a winter this dry, even our last el nino winter. I hate to say this, but I wish it would rain. Here in Portland, we received just over a single inch of rain instead of the normal 6 for this month. Last month was also 5 inches below normal rain fall.

I have lightly watered them twice in the past 2 weeks (no rain here either). I am ceratinly watering the potted plants and the raised beds. We live on a mild slope, so do recieve a goodly amount of ground water run off, so right now my other beds and are moist, so am not wooried about them.
A good deal of my perennials are waking up and beginning to set new growth......
This is indeed the driest Winter weve had in the near 20 years we've lived here. I can certainly see my Summer water bill eating into the budget this year.....my three new rain barrels are empty :-(

Ironic in that we got almost 50" of rain in 2004 in Dallas/Ft Worth, and it has done nothing but rain since New Year's Day (sigh) LOL

Send some of that rain this way :)

Us too please! Los Angeles stole our rain and we want it back!!!

The color of today was YELLOW.

Very pretty. Looks like your spring has sprung!

RikerBear, I had to force mine indoors! C'mon Iowa spring! Love your lovely yellow spring pics.

RikerBear, your flower collages are just great. I must learn how to do that, when i have more time at the computer. I must leave now to go out to the gh and do more transplanting, even tho I have my potting bench and soil at what it think is the right level still makes my upper right shoulder hurt after a little while and I have to take a break.

It is so dry here I would irrigate but I am afraid to turn water on yet as we are still having cold nights and i don't want to have to drain the hoses and connectors. DonnaS

Thank you Donna regarding the collages....I use a program called Kai Soap II to edit and arrange the pix.....many other products do the same thing however.
As for irrigation, I finally brokae down and connected a couple of the hoses yesterday and watered everything.....I woke up this morning to rain, glorious rain. And the news says it should rain today and tomorrow and than warm up to nearly 70*F.
I'm gonna get lilac blooms before Easter this year!

Okay,
I'm not going to be jealous,
I'm not going to be jealous,
If spring is happening for you it must be heading my way! This gives me hope!
I love your pictures, The collages are great. And I love the birdhouse.
Nice Almond Tree, gumilla.
Marc, are you potting up any baby dahlias?

The branches of my Kerria are nice and green. I wonder if I could force some?

I don't think I've ever been so happy to see rain, especially this time of year.

Its snowing again here....6" predicted by tomorrow night.....sigh.

I'll take some pics soon of Spring emerging in Sparks, NV--historically this happens early, only to get hit with late snow a month or two later.

Our WalMart had Peony roots with 3-4 eyes each for sale. Shouldn't those be planted in fall? I couldn't resist and bought a couple of packages, but wonder if I can put them in a pot and hope to get blooms this year, or what to do with them this early?

The rain reached all the way across Oregon, we got some starting about daylight and ending about noon. There was not much but it did get the ground wet and gave things a drink. Last night was the first frost free night in months! Here is a picture of the Iris Reticulata. I always forget how bright they are until they bloom.

Oceangirl don;t be jealous.....Spring can;t be far behind for you too. Oh and no I'm not potting any dahlias, I did however get 1 out of 40 seeds I took from one plant last Fall to sprout so I do have 1 baby dahlia. Our Winters are mild enough that I have not had to dig any of my tubers up.

Marc, I am trying to sprout some dahlia seeds now- no luck so far. But if you only got one out of forty, maybe it isn't meant to be. Do you have any tricks to starting them?
I have some small divisions from last fall I will be potting soon. I am really enjoying your pictures.
Tsout,
I would get the peonies out of the package asap and put them in pots, in bright light. They may not flower this year, but you can plant them out in April/May , depending on your weather. The eyes should be no more than an inch deep.

No tricks up my sleeve....if there were I'd have more than one sproutling :-)
Glad your enjoying the pictures :-)

Hi, RikerBear-- I've been lurking here enjoying your photography and the sneak peak (for us) of Spring blooms. I especially enjoyed your Yellow collage--it give me hope that our spring is just around the corner! But in reality I think, not. It's 10 degrees today.

I didn't realize Seattle was as warm as Zone 8b...so far ahead of our 6a...

Thanks for posting!

Your welcome Tabasco. :-) Our zone 8b is a result of our being located between two mountain ranges, and all the warm moist air funneled our way from Hawaii. We call it the Pinapple Express.
Well hang in there your Spring is indeed on the way.....you just can't quite see it yet. :-)

For all those green with envy, 95% of our winters are full of rain, rain, rain and more rain. Did I mentioned it tends to rain a lot? Dark, gloomy, and soggy. And when it's not raining thats because a "storm" (rain) just moved out and another is moving on in.

To true (normally)....it's raining here right now, but is suppose to blow away by morning and climb back inot the high 50's to low 60's. We are SO screwed later this year. Drought drought drought.....water bill water bill water bill. :-(

Nothing is worse than a drought! I hope you get more rain.

The drought is pretty serious here on the east side of the state. We had one good storm around Christmas and not much since. The snow is melted where I live and the snowpack in the mountains is not good. This is an agricultural area and we need snow for next summer's irrigation water. Our normal precipitation is about 10 inches annually. The last report I read is that the snowpack is 1/3 or 1/4 of normal. Very bad, it is not just lawns and car washing that is at stake here, it is people's annual income. Maybe we will have a nice wet spring.

I hope so, Mary!

Lovely spring flowers. I have lovely-mud. It is that snow, freeze,thaw, standing melted water on ground frost-mud..mud on puppy feet on the just cleaned floor.
I have been following the news of the drought, as have friends in ID-sending hopes of gentle rain your way.

Thank you Marcia. It has been gently raining the past two days, but is due to clear up later today. The long range forecast is for sunny warm weather for the next 10 days. uuuugggghhhhh!!!!!
I love sunny weather but pleeeeeeease......................

I know. Supposed to be in the low 70's next week with no more rain in the near future. This summer is going to be really scary.

This is the best we can do here!
These were the almost give away bulbs at one of the big boxes around Christmas time. Just stuck them in a pot & wow!!
Bernie

This is my "Daffodil Path" through the woods from our front yard to the neighbors house - we "rescued " these a couple of years ago from an open field nearby- we did get permossion tho. I just wish they would last longer. Got a surprise last week and found 2 hosta peeking up under the leaves. Hope they don't get nipped.

That's so pretty Azalea!

That daffodil path is a great idea!

Thanks, this is actually last year's pic, but it is almost the same right now, just a little fuller, I have since put Helleborus, Oak leaf Hydrangea, wild ginger, violets and ferns out there too. By summer, this area is in deep shade.

Boy Azalea, that is gorgeous! I don't have a speck of shade, or I'd consider copying you. You must really enjoy that woodland park of yours.