Pansies Johnny Jump up and Showy Primrose are all green. I'm going to _try_ to get the camera this weekend for pics. (Give me the camera mom!) Lo and behold! I have Sea Holly sprouts! My first perennials! Hooray! My unknowns are sprouting like crazy. A container of what was supposed to be purple coneflower is sprouting with I don't know what. I'll try to get that picture for you guys to ID. Also, Scabiosa Atropurpurea Chives, Bunching Onion, Turnips, and Beets are all up. Poppies and Bachelor's buttons will be going out very soon if the ground refuses to freeze for a little bit.

these somehow were downloaded backwards, so the pics with the words have their sprouts ahead, not after. At some point I'll figure it out :) My typed list is as follows: Gaillardia � burgundy * Black hollyhock * Poppy- fancy mix Hibiscus moschetuos � yellow * Iberis umbelatta � mixed pinks " � white * Red poppy Scabiosa- mourning bride * Trailing soapwort * Carnation � chabaud mix * Un named red hibiscus * Veronica speedwell � royal blue * Dianthus � pinks Rudebeckia � Irish Eyes Poppy � drama queen Malva zebrina * Poppy � Himalayan Blue * Poppy � breadseed � Hungarian Blue* Verbascum � milkshake Lupine Poppy � pink with ruffled edge Hosta * Poppy Iceland mix Aquilegia � mix * Agastache � honey bee blue Digitalis � apricot beauty * Phlox drummondii � fordhook�s finest mix Stock � giant imperial mix * Hollyhock � peaches n dreams Poppy � venus * Night scented stock Penstemon � rocky mountain blue * Poppy � ladybird * Sunflower surprise Rudebeckia * Lavatera * Larkspur � shades of blue * Sweet peas � pink Blue forget me nots * Pentsemon � huskers red Canterbury bells mixed Lavender � purple * Poppy � oriental- brilliant red Bunny tails grass Chinese cabbage Rudebeckia � Cherokee sunset Rudebeckia � cappuccino Poppy � fruit punch Mountain garland Snapdragon � northern lights Cupids dart � alba Black magic batchelor buttons Dill Detroit dark red beets Cardoon Platycodon � white balloon flower Alaskan daisy Shasta Creeping thyme * Nepeta cataria � catmint Black krim tomato � two sprouts Hibiscus � white with red eye * Bells of Ireland * Turnip greens Pyrethrum � pink and red daisy Baptisia � false indigo Echinacia paradoxa Lavender � hidcote Heuchera � bronze � coral bells * Verbascum � shades of summer Apricot foxglove * Batchelor buttons mixed Pincushion flower � lavender Armeria maritime � sea thrift * Strawberry blonde sunflower Poppy � oriental mix Wildflower blend for full sun Velvet queen sunflower Mexican tea � epazote Lemon queen sunflower Blue flax Swamp mallow Hollyhock � chaters double mixed Globe thistle * Convolvulus � blue enchantment Swiss chard � bright lights Onion sweet � white Spanish Hollyhock � black Baby�s breath � white Switch grass Society garlic Mesculin greens * Blue balloon flower Here is a link that might be useful: WS sprouts as of Easter Sunday 2011

momo3... thanks for checking in! just so happens that lots has been going on in the last two weeks, but it's still very incomplete. For starters, we had lots more digging while the pb's landscaping crew came in and buried some downspouts and dug out the patio and planting boxes, etc....but still no sign of the actual pavers that will make up both patio and pool deck....so PB does a total 180, sends the plaster crew out and lo and behold we were pebbleteched on Thursday and water was added Friday. PB will complete the patio and decks within the next 10 days...NOW HERE'S THE KICKER...the whole family left town for 10 days at the Jersey shore on Thursday, and we won't see the pool until the 6th! It's sitting in the backyard all ready for us and we're not there!!! PB is minding the pool while we're away, brushing and balancing, etc...esp. since he's building the patio all week anyway. Murphy's Law or what? I'll post pics next week when I return....have to check the log to see if you've updated your pics too...hope you're all swimming now!

Our next round of rainfall here is supposed to start this afternoon or evening. Bah humbug! The rain sure knows how to take all the fun out of it being spring. I wish that rainfall prediction was a joke. I look at the QPF several times a day, hoping the heavier rainfall disappears from the forecast, but it isn't. We have damaged roadways and bridges, fields and pastures under as much as 7' of water, a flooded courthouse basement, and every kind of problem you can imagine that comes with all the heavy rainfall and flooding, including internet service that cuts in and out constantly. So, if I disappear from this forum, it won't be that a tornado got me....it will be that the weather has been hard, apparently, on our internet service provider. I heard that some homes in town have flooded, but have no idea where or how many or how bad it is. The ground is so saturated now, and with ponds and creeks full, that any rain that falls will start causing flash flooding very quickly---hence the issuance of the Flash Flood Watch over a large portion of OK. We are now at the point that it won't take much rain at all to initiate a new round of flash flooding. When returning from a fire call Sunday, Tim noticed some small landslides on hillsides on private property adjacent to I-35, and he showed them to me yesterday. It isn't anything big, just big cracks appearing and a few inches of wet soil sliding downhill a few inches, but you have to wonder what happens in those few areas if another 4, 6, 8 or 12" of rain falls in the next few weeks (which is what I am expecting to happen). This sort of flooding rainfall is exactly what we tend to get here in our part of OK when we have an El Nino pattern (and I assume the same is true for most if not all of the rest of the state), although some El Ninos are really strong and some are not. All the rainfall we're getting makes this feel like it will be a strong El Nino. I hope I'm wrong. The rainfall was great for the first few weeks, and it brought us the drought recovery we've needed for so long, but now it is just too much rainfall on already heavily-saturated soil. My onions are in trouble. They're just too wet. One of the 5 varieties I'm growing started developing some sort of fungal infection about two weeks ago. When we had a few days of dry weather, I removed the dying foliage and they put out new growth and looked great. Now they look horrible again and the new green foliage has turned brown and is looking dead. I'll likely harvest them today in the hope that the fungal disease doesn't spread to all my other varieties. (I bet it will though, because they're all in the same raised bed and all exposed to the same exact weather and soil moisture conditions.) I know that I could go buy Mancozeb and spray them and probably save them in a more normal year, but with rain falling almost every day, I don't see how spraying will help since the rainfall likely will wash the fungicide right off the plants. It seems like a poor investment of time and money to spray them at this point. I've pretty much given up on being able to plant anything in the back garden at all. A river runs through it. Enough said about that. Weather permitting, as cool-season crops finish up in the front garden, I'll plant the hot season plants originally planned for the back garden there in the front garden as succession plantings instead. The harvest will be later, but given that we're getting constant rainfall, it is the best option at the present time. After looking forward to the new year and new garden season all winter long, the constant rainfall is just taking all the fun out of having the garden. I have a desperate urge to plant flowers and other pretty things, but where? I think I'll fill some pots with soil-less mix today and plant my flowers and ornamental peppers in them. It will keep me busy today and I can move the pots under the porch roof or the covered patio to keep them from drowning in the constant rainfall. The last time I had to resort to container growing as the only real viable option was in 2007, which also was an El Nino year. I am not getting a good feeling about how this year is going. On the positive side, Lake Texoma has risen over 11' in the last month. If it keeps rising, though, that can turn into a negative when lakeside flooding begins. It takes a huge amount of water to raise the water levels even a little bit in a lake as big as Texoma, so the huge rise in its elevation so quickly is just mind-boggling.