Wow, Jodi! How did you get such a tall scape from your Queen of Hearts? ;-) That is just adorable.

Love the orchid too, gorgeous color. Rocky Mountain Ryan is going to be JEALOUS! hehe

I'm jealous of the lilacs. They definitely won't grow here.

Thanks for the garden tour. Lovely as always!!

Ryan (Phx)

I'm not jealous! I mean I love it and want it like air but I'm not jealous...hey Jodi I think someone is at your door...and we'll just put that orchid in my living room, thank you.

Jodi-- you have some serious spring growth going on in Illinois! It's great to see! I love the daffodils, too-- they are my wife's favorite flowers and I can't wait until they all get un-covered by the foot of snow that just fell outside. (16F, 40 mph winds, snowing at 2inches per hour currently) I guess I should say look out, Jodi, a storm is headed your way!

I'm a huge fan of croci-- I love them so much!

Keep us posted-- you know we love to see it.

As for me...the building is shaking in the winter wind... this of course calls for some hot toddies!

Rocky Mountain-- I'm freezing my giblets off-- Ryan

Jodi, thanks for the virtual tour. Looks like spring has hit for sure! I miss lilacs too. We have crape myrtle here, but it's just not the same. Oh well, gotta take the good with the bad when you move anywhere I guess. The crocus volunteer is cute all by himself.

Ryan, sorry to hear about the freezing problem :-) I thought you said spring was there last week? That was a fast one. Hopefully it'll be back soon.

Alana

Alana--

No prob about the blizzard-- its wet heavy snow and we'll be back to sunny and spring by Saturday-- the plants and flowers around here are use to such things. The moisture was badly needed.

Ooooooo I like lilacs, too...my mum and dad's farm has huge rows of them-- they made the air dewy sweet.

Jodi, you have a garden finally waking up!! Yay the spring has sprung!!!
Everything looks so happy.

Thanks, you guys! You always make me laugh, and you always make me feel really good about the gardening I do! Much thanks for that!

I don't know, Frosty the Ryan... I have this feeling my bulldogs aren't exactly going to help you carry my orchids out! However, it might make for some really funny video footage... I can see the headlines now... "Flower Thief Gets Caught In The End!" LOL!

Once you get deeply entrenched in orchid growing, we'll have to see about trading some keikis or divisions... of course, that won't be for a few years. I'm sort of new at the orchid thing, myself. Once you start really looking around at the orchid types available, and their culture, you'll become a collector... or at least a drooler, like me! Man, there are some beauties out there... and several types are supposedly easy to grow!

It's pretty wild that you're sitting in the middle of a snowstorm... usually, by the time storms leave your area, they lose the chill and become spring thunderstorms for us. We probably need the moisture for the water table, but our ground is fairly saturated right now.

Phoenix Ryan... these Lilacs are loaded with buds this year! I've got three groups of Lilacs planted around the yard, and all of them have fat buds right now. I'm hoping we don't get a hard freeze, which would kill or severely warp them. The Fuji Apple tree we have actually has little buds now, too!

Alana, I love Crepe Myrtle! There are a very few cold hardy varieties that can tolerate our zone 5... we've got young plants in containers that should be breaking dormancy very soon... I hope they survived the winter stored in the garage with the rest of the perennials.

If I'm not mistaken, we have an order in for some white Lilacs, and possibly some other pink and purple shades... we have quite a bit of bare root plants arriving soon, so I'll know when the order gets here. Lilac fragrance is one of my favorites!

Thanks again for the nice words... I'll definitely be posting more tours as the season progresses!

"Frosty the Ryan"... I love it!

Jodi, you'll have to post plenty of photos of the lilacs in full bloom.

The local nursery had a chinese lilac on sale, but I just wasn't sure how well it would do here. Apparently doesn't require the winter chill to set blooms.

Jodi,
We go from Winter to Summer with just a day of spring here and there. Actually, our winters are more like your spring. I do miss the 4 seasons...looks like everything is awakening at your house!
:-)
Kristi

Don't worry, Ryan... I'll post plenty of photos. There's always something to see, or something new being planted here! I wonder how a dwarf Lilac would do in AZ?

Kristi, I would miss spring so much! It's that time of renewal and rebirth, and I love it so much! I could do without the long, cold winters we have, though!

Some of my favorite things happen in spring... that fresh, clean scent of rain in the air right before a spring thunderstorm... watching all the trees and grass and other plants go from bleak to green and vibrant... and last night, as I walked Maia before bedtime, I swear I could smell the faint scent of something floral in the air! It was almost like the scent of crab apple blossoms or cherry blossoms! Delicious!

I'd love to trade about half of winter for a long, extended spring! Winter does have advantages... it kills bacterias and viral things, and it helps cleanse nature... but it's way too long and way too cold!

Jodi, it's incredible how Mother Nature works. Just a few weeks ago, I still saw snow in your garden and now look, already there're blooms! I think it's wonderful to have 4 seasons so you have something to look forward to. We don't have that anticipation to live with! I don't think you will want that trade.. if Winter is short, Spring won't be so much waited for!
And soon I will get to see your nursery, right? What seedlings have you started already indoors? Hurry ub, post more photos, Jodi.

Xuan

Honestly, Xuan, I wouldn't miss the cold or the snow and ice. When I was a kid, winter was fun... sledding, ice skating, building snowmen and snow forts, having snowball fights! But as an adult, it's just work and danger and cold... I have to shovel the sidewalks, clean off the car... the roads are slick and icy, driving is dangerous sometimes... and the cold invades my bones and keeps me indoors. No, I don't think I'd miss it very much now!

I would love to be able to grow my bulbs out in the gardens, and have orchids hanging from my trees! It would be nice to wake up every morning without cold, stiff joints and bones. I can deal with rain a lot better and easier than snow!

Down in the Seed Dungeon, I've got a ton of perennials started, some bulbs, and some trees. We still have a lot of bare root items coming in... roses, Irises, Daylilies, Clematis, etc... I'll try to get some photos taken very soon!

just lovely, beautiful Queen of Hearts, I don't have
that one :( thanks for sharing I love pictures!
Susan

Thank you, Susan! This is my first season with Queen of Hearts, and I like it so far! I just wish it had taller scapes. I think it'll be better next year... I got it on sale late in the season, so I think it may be a bit stressed. There are no offsets yet, or I'd offer to share. It hasn't produced any seed pods yet, either. I am breeding this second scape of blooms, so it may just produce pods... no telling yet. If it does end up producing seed, I'd be happy to share those with you. :-)

Novella is a very close lookalike to Queen of Hearts... Cindee has that one, and it looks very similar. So, if you can locate either variety next season, you could try to grab one!

I'll keep you posted on the seeds...

Lovely flowers!

Phoenix Ryan, when I worked at a nursery years ago in Phoenix (I grew up there) we sold Korean lilacs. I never grew one there and don't know how well they actually do but I have one here and love her. Photo link below.

You could also grow a Texas Mountain Laurel (Sophora secundaflora) if you want fragrant purple flowers on a shrub that grows and blooms really well in Phoenix.

Here is a link that might be useful: 'Miss Kim' Korean Lilac

Many years ago, I bought a "Miss Kim" dwarf lilac for a whopping $4 at the local grocery store... they had their little hoop house set up in the parking lot, with the normal display of annuals, veggie starts, and a few shrubs.

I had it planted next to the house we rented, and it grew there and bloomed beautifully for about four years... when we moved, I gave it to a friend in town. She still has it growing in her garden, and if she doesn't keep it pruned, it takes over! It's really a prolific bloomer, and I loved it!

I plan on getting another when we finally buy a home... along the way, I've been taking notes on what does well and what I want to include in my final yard... hopefully the last home we'll ever move to! As a bonus, my daughter's name is Kim... so it fits right in with our family!