Tony, I'm with you. I have never had any luck with suet of any type or recipe in Florida. I DO think you are more likely to succeed with it in cooler weather because the birds need a much higher energy type food then. And also because many types of suet cakes and mixtures spoil quickly in the heat. But even in winter, my woodpeckers prefer to eat sunflower seeds directly from the tray feeder, and they ALL ignore the suet. I do buy the big SEED cakes (BirdOla, etc) that just look like lots of seeds, peanuts and fruit somehow molded into a large square. You probably know what I mean...there's no suet that you can see, just the seeds & fruit bits. I put that in a wire holder designed just for it, and the goldfinches will eat from that, until it gets too small for their short beaks to reach it through the wire. They still drop shells and a little bit of seed under the feeder, but they can't fling it all over while looking for something they like, so it's much less messy. My goldfinches finally showed up about 3 weeks ago, and I've had as many as 30 in the yard at once. There are at least 4 that are almost completely yellow and black now. Just gorgeous. I haven't seen any buntings or grosbeaks this year, though. And the chipping sparrows left right when the goldfinches showed up. But I'm happy...I have my cardinals back, my white-winged doves are here, and my goldfinches. My seed-eating catbird and my seed-eating Myrtle warbler both left, after stuffing themselves for several weeks. (They obviously didn't get the memo telling them they prefer insects and fruit.) I'm really happy now that the squirrels can't seem to reach the feeders any more. (Still knocking wood, though.) Try one of the big seed cakes and see if you like it! Marcia

I think I have too many things growing and blooming to even list them! My snow crocus that have been in the ground for years are already finished blooming--sometimes they get a second flush and I hope they do this year! I got 250 “new” snow crocus at the VanEngelen 40% off sale in fall and the 125 I put around the pine in my front yard the end of January started blooming about a month ago, more every day, with a slight hesitation during our last storm. Another batch I put in the backyard mid-February is starting to bloom and the other batch is up but not blooming yet. Other bulbs! Ipheion and Chionodoxa planted last year blooming. Eranthus blooming, but the one batch the squirrels have access to “lost” most of the flowers! The Squirrels seem to consider the flowers a delicacy for breakfast! Rock garden iris, Iris reticulata, the blue ones are done but expecting other colors to bloom yet. Geranium tuberosum that never came up at all last year--thought they had rotted in the ground, are coming up this year! My “old” grape hyacinths are budding and starting to open. Last year’s ‘Valerie Finnis’ grape hyacinths (sky blue) are growing like crazy but no buds yet. A species tulip, Tulip dasystemon from last year, a few are up but it looks like many of them may have rotted in the ground over winter--gives me somewhere else to plant some new bulbs this fall! The new Hyacinths I planted over winter aren’t up yet, but my old ones are up and all with buds or a couple of them wide open already--I love the scent of hyacinths! The daffodils, ‘Faith’, which are supposed to be pink, are blooming but it’s most definitely not pink! Another “pink” I got last year had one bud when we got the last snow and it’s head broke over so I brought it in and stuck it in water but I think it had been too long before I got it in water and it did kind of open but didn’t look very good! It’s not pink either--I think I’m gonna give up on getting a pink daf! A few of my old yellow dafs are blooming---cut a couple of them before the last snow so they wouldn’t break off and had them in the house for a week--which was really nice when it was snowing outside! The ‘Ronaldo’ tulips I got from TreeBarb are way up and budding. Lilies ‘Monte Negro’ and ‘Red Electric’ I got from Barb last year are up and multiplying like crazy! Four varieties of German Iris are growing like crazy but too early for buds. The ‘Star of Persia’ Allium from a swap long ago is a foot tall but not budding yet. Regular perennials! The Rockcress, both Arabis and Aubrietia are blooming. Pasque flower, Pulsatilla, three blooming--P. vulgaris in white and purple, and the purple P. patens. Primroses starting to bloom, Johnny-jump-ups starting to bloom ALL over the place, and sweet violets blooming--at least the pink ones are! My orange creeping wallflower, Erysimum, is budding, along with ‘Waterperry’ creeping Veronica and also creeping Veronica repens, and all the Ajugas are starting to bud. Not budding/blooming! Everything else except the “late” things (like hosta) are up anywhere from just a couple inches to about a foot. Several varieties of daylilies, small but up and looking good. My two dark foliage upright sedums are 6-8” tall already. All my different hen & chicks are in the process of turning their wonderful spring colors! Old fashioned bleeding heart well up but not budding yet, and I’m glad for that ‘cause for something that likes to come up and bloom so early they sure don’t seem to understand the concept that they’re not supposed to freeze when it gets “too” cold and I’ve had the buds/foliage freeze a couple times with late freezes! I’m jumping up and down about the ‘Looking Glass’ Brunnera I got from Dryad58 at the Spring ’09 swap--this is the first year it’s really noticeably getting bigger (all about that Heavy Clay I have!) and I think it’s gonna look REALLY good this summer! Wonderful foliage plant--with flowers, albeit small flowers! I have three seedling columbine from a ProvoGirl swap plant that are looking really good this year (the original plant died) and I can’t wait to see what color they are! And then! My “regular” yellow iceplant died off the whole way this winter--and that’s ok with me! Something else will go there! Right now it looks like most of my ‘Black Scallop’ Ajuga may have died, but some of it is still alive so I’ll just get the patch going again! And I’m not sure, but it looks like my Mesa Verde iceplant may have died off completely! Will know for sure in a month and then will need to decide if I want to replace it or not if I’m right! And my ‘Tricolor’ sage died! Not too surprised! It was about 7 years old and I think it had Alzheimer’s! No seeds! Didn’t get winter sowing done and then decided to skip it all together this year since I’ll be gone a while in May and there wouldn’t be anybody to take care of them. And, had been planning to get my tomatoes and eggplants sown on the first, so I’m a few days late! As usual! I spent three hours yesterday out turning over my tomato/veggie garden for the first time this year (that means it’s badly packed down!), and starting to turn in bags and bags of whole leaves from last fall. With all the wintertime vermi-procreating I’ve had going on under the leaf bags for the last few years the worms are “thick” out there now! (And after turning in all the whole leaves last spring the “soil” is FINALLY starting to actually get better!) But the first “row” I dig is immediately along the fence and it’s infested with cottonwood roots so it takes forever to get that 18” done and it’s incredibly hard work since I dig down as far as I can--and even slightly under the neighbor’s fence, to cut the roots off as far down/back as I can! And after getting that started I “reset” all the pieces of flagstone that are my path thru that part of the garden and redid another big stepping stone on the other side of the yard in the perennials. Boy, was I tired and sore last nite! And I’ll be heading back out there today to do some more! Takes a while to get the muscles back in shape after sitting inside all winter! And if predictions hold up we could get a GOOD storm on Monday/Tuesday! Yesterday one of the weathermen said we could get up to two feet in the mountains and up to two inches of precip down here! Finger’s crossed! Time to head back outside, Skybird This post was edited by skybird on Fri, Apr 5, 13 at 14:50

Sunshine: I bought it something around a year ago. It has put out some new growth this summer, which was my main goal from the beginning for this season. But the amount of flowers and fruitlets took me absolutely by surprise, so, I started dreaming of home-made marmalade.. Susanne: I was just curious so I started gently taking off the soil from one side, very gently, glad I did it. It was and is still suffering a bit from radical change in climate, but it would most likely had suffered from being rootbound in the future, and I think it would have been a lot bigger 'surgery' for the tree then. It was very pot bound when I bought it and I did not clearly untangle the roots good enough when repotting. Now only the roots on the sides were growing as they should, the ones in the middle were circling around each other as they were still in the old pot. After all, I think it will bounce back, I have pruned and root-pruned many plants in my past, and every single more mature ones have recovered. I just hope the plant is wise enough to put energy on growing foliage at this stage, instead of stubbornly producing flowers..

Good reminder! Alas, I wasnt able to water mine today. I had to go do errands and then see the dentist arrgg! I cant feel my face right now so Im not watering lol. I did move a few things.