Madabouteu, We have good results with Thalia. They are planted by the thousands in the heavy clay around the Visitor Center here. They are also very fragrant. February Gold is another good long term colonizer. Thousands were planted 20 years ago and flow in and out of the Oakleaf Hydrangea drifts. A smaller planting of Mt. Hood is still going strong. The closely related Snowflake/Leucojum aestivale'Gravetye Giant'also clumps up quickly here. Narcissus 'Tete A Tete' and 'Kinglet' also come to mind. I first planted 'Kinglet' in 1974. It tends to go to foliage but it is still one of my favorites because of the jonquil fragrance. Small clumps of Minnow, Sundisc and others have been at the house for decades. They require an occasional feeding or will go to foliage only. Their soil is a poor sandy loam and I've not tried them in the valley clays. Mike519

Put your tulips and hyacinths (if you have any) in your refrigerator now, preferably in the meat drawer.. Don't put them in the fruit drawer (gases from ripening fruit can kill the blooms). Mark your calendar for 8 to 12 weeks before you plant them in your containers. You could probably get away without chilling the species tulips, but it's a better bet to chill. The spider lilies you can plant in the ground right now. If anything will survive this drought it would be them. Don't expect blooms from them this year. But they should put up leaves very soon. Leave them standing all winter and let them turn yellow in the spring before you cut them back. (Just a note for future reference. Spider Lily leaves look just like daffodils, except they have a dark stripe down the middle.) You can go ahead and plant daffodils, muscari, etc. in your pots now. Do not take them into the garage. Leave them outside where they can get any drop of rain that falls. They won't freeze in your mild winters, and they need the chill time to be able to bloom come spring. Your pots will have to have some water through the winter. Not alot, but some: a good watering once a week at least. Save some bath water, mop water or dish water for them. (Not water with bleach in it.) Plant your bulbs according to the package directions. Give them a spoonful of bulb booster when you plant them. Keep them watered, and look forward to spring! To give yourself added pleasure, plant some pansies or flowering kale in the top of the pots after your bulbs are planted. Coordinate the pansy colors with the bulb colors. (I have planted sparaxis before and they only returned about three years or so. But they are pretty.)

A lesson I learned when someone gave me one of those mega bags of bulbs one winter. A gift that I was thrilled to receieve except that I was afraid of having to dig a million holes to get them all planted... You don't have to plant most of the spring blooming bulbs, they will plant themselves!! This really holds true with daffodils. Most bulbs have special roots that can actually pull the bulb to the proper planting depth as the plant grows (doesn't happen while they are dormant in the winter). Amazing since they don't have muscles nor brains to figure this out. If you take the area where you want the spring bulb display and rough up the soil with a rake or hoe and then lay down as much good soil as you can (potting soil is far richer than they would need but it is so convenient in large bags). Then sprinkle the bulbs in random patterns on the top of the soil and bury the whole mess under a deep layer of mulch or fallen leaves. The bulbs will emerge in the spring just as if they had been buried deep in the soil, and in the summer after the blooming season is done you can dig down in the composting mulch and you will see that the bulbs have buried themselves in the soil. They planted themselves. The mulch layer needs to be pretty deep because it will settle and break down to a thin layer by the next summer. Bulbs and clay don't mix so you would want to mound many inches of top soil or bagged soil mix on top of the clay and then toss on the bulbs. This is far easier than digging out the clay. If you have nothing but clay the easiest way to garden is to build up mounds of good soil on top of the clay. You also don't have to worry about whether the bulbs are right side up or upside down - they will grow up no matter which way you plant them. No need to make this harder than it already is, just toss them out in a random pattern and bury them in mulch. Another trick is to simply place a bulb in a plastic flower pot that is 3/4 full of soil and cover with mulch. After it blooms and the leaves die back you can dig it out and you will most often find it on the bottom of the pot.

No, it's definitely not a stupid question! If winds were calm all the time then you might not need to actually put much additional protection other than some lights , but since winter is often very windy it would never work. You dont have to protect Mule palm fronds for that long though! During the average winter if you protect the fronds of your palm from mid December to late February, maybe the first week of March, then your good to go. They will only be covered 6-7 weeks of the year during the average winter and during winters like this one you wouldnt even need to protect it at all yet since we have not gone below 22F (not sure how cold it got in the hamptons but that's my lowest temperature so far in NYC). You really only have to protect the fronds below 20F and we have definitely not see temperatures like that too much the past 2 years! -Alex