Hello Juliet,

Here in Belgium it's still wintertime, very cold (2-3°C).
Next month I'll prune my clematis, witeria and rose bushes.
But for the first rose bloom I'll have to wait till May : too long :(

Here is a link that might be useful: A Little Bit of Paradise

Also in CA, and today we are having our fourth rainstorm in 4 days. However, Spring has definitely already started here! Here is a list of the plants that have already started their Spring bloom (as opposed to still putting out sporadic bloom, like the tea roses, which never stop):

daphnes
helebores
r.banksie lutea
narcisus
Japanese quince

The camelias & crabapple trees are covered in buds and should start blooming in 2-3 weeks. Most of my other Spring bulbs, although not blooming like the narcisus, are halfway up already.

Spring comes early here, no matter what the weather is doing - and I have yet to finish pruning the roses!

Jackie
l

The roses not till Mid may but right now the Jasmine nudiform or winter Jasmine is blooming always any warm spot after a bitter freeze in late January. Folks passing always say how odd look at the forsythia....! Snowdrop will pop the first week of February somtimes last wek of January and Skimmia is also pretty right now in an otherwise barren looking garden.

oops nudiflorum

little bulbs are poking up and the day lilies fresh green swords are breaking the soil. About now, I cut back the old hellebore leaves to see the new growth and the fat buds waiting to burst into gothic colour. I had a great session digging at my allotments and planted a rose - Wild Edric and dug a patch for the new raspberries. I start seed sowing in earnest at the beginning of February so right now, I am sorting out modules and seed compost, cleaning the propagator and thrilling over every new ipheon or snowdrop. After years of amendment, I have lovely workable soil so I will also start to cover the beds with black polythene to warm the soil for the new season potatoes. As I have finally got all raised beds, this will be my first time for growing potatoes in a raised bed system and I confess to feeling slkightly anxious as I have 16kg to get in the ground. So, I would say that the winter hibernation is coming to a thankful end and the garden is sleepily responding to the low winter sun.

Things here on the coast north of Boston don't really wake up until mid or late April.

The season has never really stopped here, and with the rain the hills are turning green and lush looking. I need to prune a few more roses, fertilize everything, add more mulch and put another eight bands in the ground or plant them in larger pots. In March I'll have another four bands arriving and after that I hope to spend the remainder of the spring and early summer enjoying the (hopefully) spectacularly growing and blooming plants in my garden. The big rose flush here is usually at the end of April but of course some of the roses will begin earlier and some have never stopped. I do love the fact that there's always something to enjoy in the garden. We do have different seasons here. The changes are more subtle than in colder climates but they are nevertheless real.

Ingrid

Grass grows in the cool weather here: it's been lush since October, while during summer all the landcape is tan and dun, and dark green where there are woods. Most of the snow in the warm, south-facing parts of the garden has melted, though the garden is a mess, the roses all bowed and smashed from the weight of the snow. There's a hard frost every morning. We had two magnificent days of sun to remind us that spring will come, but then the fog came in, and so did I: I don't work in the garden when the temperature's in the thirties and all the world is white.

The native Helleborus foetidus has started to bloom, and in the garden the cultivated hellebores and the sarcococcas should be flowering soon; perhaps also the Daphne odora. Winter aconite blooms in January but I haven't seen it yet: it may still be under snow. February should bring the first fragrant violets and possibly the earliest crocuses. March is the big month for the woodland bulbs: the beautiful Hepatica triloba and Erythronium dens-canis flower then under the leafless trees; and Primula vulgaris and more violets keep them company. The garden's a mess then. March is when the Teas and Chinas drop the leaves that have clothed them all winter and put on new foliage, and during the interval they're tattered and ugly. This year they're already ugly, as their foliage was killed by the hard freeze before Christmas, and they can't get worse then their current mud-color. I have a lot of pruning to do. The early daffodils bloom in March, the crocuses flower then, and in April the garden will leaf out fully and prepare for roses in May.

Melissa

It's gray and foggy and every branch and twig is covered with hoarfrost. On my trip out to get bay and sage leaves for a pot of beans, I looked at the thermometer. 20°F at 9 a.m....brrrr....
Melissa

Luckily, we are now having a lot of rain. Unluckily, there is a lot of wind with it. All my pots are being blown over. I panic that they might blow over the terrace, into Anna's garden below. The roses have now stopped flowering, although they all still have their leaves.
As I haven't yet properly laid out the garden, I haven't planted any bulbs yet. However the little wild narcissi with the big perfume are now blooming in the area. The anenomes are out everywhere, and the wild clematis cirrhosa is blooming along the roadside and in the olive groves.
Most of my herbaceous plants, are already putting on new growth. I am panicking, because, with all the rain, I cannot get out there to plant them.
Daisy

Actually, it was a bit warmer than I reported, it was 24°F at nine o'clock (I converted the Centigrade wrong). At 12:40 midday the temperature has risen to a balmy 29°F and everything else is unchanged. This is the coldest winter I've seen since I moved to Italy in spring 2000. I'm positively looking forward to the snow forecast for next week.
Melissa

My roses don't get started until the end of May, but I'm hoping to get one of the early yellows this Spring. I'm interested to see how much earlier it will bloom.

I'm always looking for plants that will extend my gardening season. I think my earliest bloomer is witch hazel in early February followed by snowdrops, crocus and hellebores. My last bloomers are japanese anemones and asters.

It starts in March with the wisteria and Banksia rose, but the fight with each other & I had to keep them at opposite ends of the arbor

http://s818.photobucket.com/albums/zz102/poodlepup_photos/?action=view&current=wist1.jpg

http://s818.photobucket.com/albums/zz102/poodlepup_photos/?action=view&current=wist2.jpg

http://s818.photobucket.com/albums/zz102/poodlepup_photos/?action=view&current=wist3.jpg

that didn't work

If this doesn't work, I give up

I wish gardenweb had a section that shows you how to post photos

The summer snowflake will begin blooming in my garden next month. Actually, I have a very goofy May nights salvia with a couple of blooms on it right now. odd yard.

At 12:40 midday the temperature has risen to a balmy 29°F and everything else is unchanged.

Melissa, and the bay laurel survives this without dying? I thought bay laurel's tolerance for killing frost temps. was fairly limited. Am I wrong about that?

this is a great post---it is nice to read about how many different gardens are on GW-----I haven't been in the yard for quite a while--------can't walk very well right now.
Florence

It looks fresh and lively starting in March, and the first flush bursts forth in April and continues gloriously into May. We have things growing and blooming all winter long, but I actually wish they would not. Why? Not only does it mean that we never get the refreshing break of winter, but also, a garden blooming in the leaden light of midwinter is somehow not a pretty thing.

I'd trade zone 9 with drought for zone 7 or 8 with lots of rain without hesitation. But I should stop and count my blessings. I grew up in zone 5.

Rosefolly

Poodlepup, you have to copy the 3rd one - HTML Code. Beautiful wisteria!

I wish I knew. I feel like I haven't been paying attention for 3 years. I remember it took longer than I thought it would. February and March are long months. We don't have any "spring bulbs". Not enough chill here. I think my daylilies are in deep shock from the freezes and wouldn't think of sticking their new green tips out of the ground. We just had a huge rain so maybe stuff will start sprouting - hopefully, not just in time to get zapped by the next hard freeze.

Sherry

Things start agonizingly late here.

I am looking back at my rose 'diary' from the past 5 years and it doesn't vary much from year to year. If Mother Nature cooperates like she has the past couple of years and the snow is mostly melted I can get my bareroots planted the 3rd week of April. By then my spring-flowering bulbs are starting and I will have daffodils, tulips and alliums right up until the end of May. My lilies will start popping up from the bare earth but won't bloom until early July (the asiatics) followed by the OTs and orientals in August. My clematis start in May, and I will have iris blooming then. I don't dare prune my roses until early May which is when I can assess the damage. It can be a very long process if the winter was particularly harsh, having over 350 rosebushes to tend to. When I had fewer roses I used to spend days winter-protecting the moderns with mulch, straw and burlap in the fall but not anymore. Its survival of the fittest out there now. I expect and accept the fact that I will end up with only inches of live cane left on most moderns but with hard pruning and tender-loving care my roses will be robust and blooming within weeks. When people ask me why I give up precious space to the old once-bloomers I just smile and point. There's nothing like a 6 1/2 foot tall rosebush, radiant with green cane and bursting with green leaf buds in zone 4 in early May! Compare that to the 2 inch stubs left of the hybrid teas after pruning!

My earliest roses begin to bloom the first week of June. These would be the rugosas first, then the spinosissimas and species roses. The rest of the roses don't begin to bloom until the 3rd week of June. Peak rose bloom for the old roses will be from June 18 to July 1st. It will be insanely beautiful during that brief time and I will go crazy trying to photograph every bloom that opens. I will call family and plead with them to get up here before the 'peak' is over to see the show and they will predictably show up either after a heavy downpour when the petals are in the mud, OR the first week of July when the japanese beetles arrive and peak is fading. There will be still be some blooms after that time but not in their astounding glory. I will basically stay outside from sun-up until after the fireflies come out just so I can ingest all the beauty and fragrance I have longed for. It is such a fleeting treasure and I don't want to waste a single second of it. Sure, there will be the modern roses to take over and provide me with color and beauty, but nothing is harder than bidding adieu to Felicite, Nestor, Johasine, Leda and Charles. Their blooms may not last long but they are my forever friends.
Ahh, June. Such a long way off and so magical. I am blessed to have been born in the month of roses.

Celeste

Lady Banksia---She will have to share with Veilchenblau this Spring. She is an aggressive lady. Late March is her time to shine

a href="http://s818.photobucket.com/albums/zz102/poodlepup_photos/?action=view¤t=wist2.jpg"; target="_blank">{{gwi:222718}}

poodlepup,
That's what a pergola and spring bloom should be, in my opinion. Fortunately, if anything can stand up to the double white Lady Banks, it's wisteria--I have them both as well--but I don't envy you the task of keeping them under control. A glorious photo.

york rose,
Bay laurel (Laurus nobilis) is somewhat puzzling to me. Our plants may have some cold damage, not from this episode but from the hard freeze before Christmas when the low was around 20°F or in the high teens. Right now the big plant (about 30') looks fine, though I won't know for sure until the weather warms up and I can have a look at it when it's not covered in snow, ice, or hoarfrost. The temperature is still below freezing and it's still cloudy and foggy.
The British Hillier guide to trees and shrubs rates bay laurel as hardy, though saying that it needs a mild climate and is sensitive to frost. American authority Michael Dirr in his "Manual of Woody Landscape Plants" give a tentative zone range of 8b-9, 10 on West Coast, and says "8 to 12' represents a fine specimen". Thirty foot bay laurels like ours are not uncommon around here, and in places colder than our property.
Actually, all this evidence is consistent; it's I who have difficulty getting beyond my preconceptions. Most Americans, the West Coast excepted, are used to great temperature ranges between winter and summer, and wide swings in temperature in a brief period. In north Florida where I grew up, many winters we had frosts in the teens, but then the temperatures would rise into the fifties or sixties during the day, and even in winter the average temperature was fairly warm. Gardeners in the East regularly lament sharp spring frosts that blast magnolias and camelias, and face freezing autumn cold fronts after days of mild weather that leave the roses in full bloom. We don't have that here, for the most part. In Italy it gets chilly and it stays chilly, with little of the wide swings of the U.S. climate. Right now we've had snow on the ground for a month and are experiencing the coldest winter in the decade we've been in Italy. But for all that, the coldest it's been is the high teens, and that only one time. Technically we're probably in USDA Zone 8b (correct?), warmer than the north Florida of my youth, and yet because of the prolonged chill temperate climate plants flourish here: our cold-loving common lilacs bloom like mad every spring.

Melissa

Well here in coastal S.C Charleston area it would be March because that is when all the azaleas are starting to bloom and by the last week they are at peak. Also the wisteria, dogwoods and bradford pears are also blooming. What a show it is to start off the growing season! I'm sure daf's and other spring bulbs start blooming late Feb. but I'm not sure. For some reason I have never planted spring bulbs though last year I planted some dutch irises and they have green leaves poking up now I noticed yesterday. ~Meghan

When the fresh new rose leaves burst forth I feel like the garden is waking. This would be sometime in March. April brings bulbs, Wisteria, Daphne,poppies, and Ceanothus. Except for Roulettii and the Banksias we don't really see rose blooms until May, depending on the weather. Right now though the primroses are blooming.

Oh, yeah, I forgot about the azaleas. Different varieties bloom early to late February. I just hope the hard freezes haven't damaged the buds. Last year's February hard freezes didn't bother them. The caladiums don't come up until May, I think. They need the heat - 65 degree soil temps. The hydrangeas are really late - well into May. It seems to me that the roses start greening up in March.

Sherry

I wonder if the reason, that tender plants like Laurus nobilis in warm climates, get through the occasional cold winter okay, is because their wood is ripened.
Here in the mountains of Crete, some of the villages are abandoned during the winter because they are completely snowbound. Yet in the summer, the Bouganvilleas, Campsis radicans, Plumbago capensis and other tender plants in those villages, bloom just as profusely as their counterparts down at sea level.
I think it could be that the intense summer sun ripens the wood, so that they can take the cold winters.
Daisy

yet because of the prolonged chill temperate climate plants flourish here: our cold-loving common lilacs bloom like mad every spring

That's more or less how I envision what it must be like north of San Francisco (more or less, sorta kinda).

We've had a warm spell this week. Early this morning, I noticed one of my two 'Nur Mahal' roses had tiny new leaves beginning to come ot. My three 'Pacific Serenade' roses, as well as both of my 'Pretty Jessica' roses also have new leaves beginning to break out. It's too early for that, but kind of fun to see. My other roses are still asleep.

Randy

I went over today to snap the snowdrop which have bloomed and the Skimmia which ads nice purple winter color.
{{gwi:222719}}
Tiny Snowdrop we have these in little groups all over our garden
{{gwi:222720}}

The ripening effect of hot summers is doubtless important for some plants (tender roses!!!), but bay laurel is hardy in the milder parts of Britain, hardly noted for summer heat. Another point: a lot of relatively tender, Mediterranean plants don't mind abundant water in winter, but will sicken or die if they get weeks of rain during their growing season. I've had this happen with rosemary and tall bearded iris. (Or you can supply good drainage, rather than just plonking them down on a clay hillside like we do.) I suspect part of the trouble with Mediterranean plants in the U.S. is the humid summers, with their wet air, frequent rain, and hot nights, very different from the dry summer heat of the hill country.
Very pretty snowdrops!
Melissa

I put lots of effort into finding plants that bloom in the winter, and this year I'm seeing success!
My garden has woken up this month, with the following blooming quite prettily:
Crocus
winter honeysuckle
wintersweet
lots of varieties of camellias
a few varieties of japanese apricots (prunus mume)
a few varieties of witch hazel (or winter hazel? forgot)
hellebores

There are buds about to open on many other things.
The roses won't start until late April. I'm going to prune soon.

Here in Southern California a garden can be year round "alive" and I am trying to make the most of this mild climate. Right now my camellias started blooming and the cymbidium orchids are almost ready to open their flowers. Less spectacular but also flowering right now are my alstromerias, and the bacopas open tons of her cute little white flowers.

I just finished pruning my roses so there are no flowers on the roses grown in the ground in the moment, but I was very surprised that some of my one year old bands grown in 5 gallon containers and some of my newest bands growing in 1 gallon pots tried or are trying to flower already: Memorial Day, Mr. Lincoln, Sister Elizabeth, Heritage, Mme. Ernest Calvat and Iceberg had already flowers or have buds, that will open soon. I assume that the soil is much warmer in the pots than the regular ground soil and that enables the roses in pots to flower so early. Of course that is only a teaser for the spring flush, can't wait!

Christina

Here in Maryland the garden starts to wake up in mid-March or so, starting with early spring bulbs and forsythia blooming. Then the roses start to leaf out and there's spring wildflowers and flowering trees. The early yellow roses will bloom in April, but the real rose season starts mid-late May.

So much fun to read about when all your gardens shine. Thank you all, for your input here and making this thread a joy to read.

Juliet

aw, Juliet, I'm in the same area as you, roughly,... and I feel the same way, the dramatic storms are somehow romantic because we so seldom get them.

Also I'm hoping all the rain will encourage the flowering sakura trees (which flowered very poorly last year) in the area to do a big huge bloom come this March.

my redbud is blooming some, the rosemary is very very happy. and despite me recently planting them, my camellias have recovered and are blooming some, too.
{{gwi:57273}}

wow, poodlepup, that's amazing wisteria! man, I love wisteria so much. I planted 5 about a month ago, (and a yellow lady banks) so I'll look forward to a big one like your's someday.