Since I garden on a serious slope, I am not direct-sowing seeds until after this weekend's rainfall has ended. Otherwise, if heavy rain occurs, all the seeds in each bed might wash down to the board at the lower end of each raised bed. I had that happen one year and all the plants sprouted en mass right along the board edging. I have my carrot, radish, spinach, swiss chard and beet seeds out and ready to go, and would have planted them yesterday if it wasn't for the rain in the forecast. I transplanted most of my sugar snap pea plants into beds at the high end of the garden yesterday, and today I am going to transplant the rest of them and some of the lettuce, dill and cilantro started from seed in the greenhouse. We will have nights close to freezing next week (and had a low temp of 23 a couple of nights ago) so I know I'll have to watch the temps carefully and use floating row cover if needed. I also transplanted 9 Packman broccoli plants into the ground yesterday, but have dozens more broccoli plants in several varieties. Some of those I'll transplant later, and some are just for backup. The onions, cauliflower and brussels sprouts planted last week look great despite that 23-degree night when the temps at our house remained below freezing for 8 or 9 hours. I have had onion plants freeze in the lower 20 before but that was in really wet soil and these are in a fairly dry area. Poppies and larkspur are up and some of the larkspur is about to bloom. Chamomile, which reseeds itself everywhere, already is blooming. Volunteer Laura Bush petunias are popping up everywhere, and the asparagus is beginning to emerge from the ground. I wanted to plant potatoes in the ground before the rain got here, but I rushed to finish potato planting before the rain last year and then it rained and rained and rained and the potatoes rotted, so I am waiting until after the rain is over this weekend and then I'll plant potatoes as soon as the ground is dry enough. I hope that I'll be able to get the direct seeded stuff into the ground as soon as the rains ends and the paths are dry enough to walk in. We are in that time of the winter fire season where we're having calls almost every day so my perfectly planned planting schedule doesn't necessarily get to proceed as planned if I am not here to do the planting. Yesterday I moved the tomato transplants from the indoor light shelf back out to the greenhouse, hopefully to stay, as they're now so tall that they are touching the lights, and the lights are raised as high as they'll go, so the tomato plants can't go back there. I think they'll be fine in the greenhouse because it has been staying 6 to 8 degrees warmer than the nighttime lows as long as I remember to close the doors and vents in mid-afternoon to hold in whatever heat has built up inside of it. Now that the light shelves are mostly empty (one shelf has month-old pepper plants and another has herbs and flowers sprouting), I can start more flats of warm-season flowers and herbs. With the way the forecast looks, it seems like I'll have a couple of days indoors to sow all the seeds I want into flats. We need the rain, so I'm not complaining. I just hope it gets here, rains, and then the storms go away so we get a few drier days for planting. Dawn

Hi matoad, Im a little bit late to the party this time! Ive been planning to come back to respond to your post, but Ive been out in the yard trying to get a bunch of stuff done before the rain we got today, and, in the meantime everybody else beat me to it! I only have a couple things to add! First, if youre able to post pictures of your unidentified perennials when the foliage is getting big enough to be realistic, we can probably help you identify them. If so, itll help a lot in knowing how to take care of them. (Just dont ask me how to post the photos! LOL All I know is that you have to have a photo hosting site first!) As Steve said, for any spring blooming shrubs or bushes, if you want to prune or cut them back, do it right after they finish blooming. For sure dont prune them after midsummer, or you will very likely not get any flowers the following spring. The same thing is true for some roses toothe ones that bloom on old wood only. That means the only canes (branches) theyll get flowers on next year are the ones that grow this year. Theyre also the ones that usually bloom like mad for a few weeks in spring or early summer, and then dont bloom anymore for the rest of the summer. So if you have any of those, do the same as with spring blooming bushesprune immediately after blooming, and then not again until after the next bloom. Most roses these days, though, are ever blooming, so unless you have some really old ones around, youre probably ok to prune them whenever the spirit moves you! If youre not sure, watch them this year to see if they keep blooming all summer or not. I really dont know much about berries and other small fruits, but I do agree with what Steve says about raspberries. Somewhere in the hinterlands of my brain I think I remember hearing that one time. And if you should happen to have any other small fruits or vines, I think Id google them first before doing anything to them. Or ask for plant specific adviceOR post a picture if youre not even sure what to ask about! Somebody around here will know if you/we can figure out what you have! On the topic of clematis, heres a link to a really great site all about clematisincluding pruningwhich can be kind of confusing for clematis! If you ever decide to put some in, BE SURE you keep the name, because theres three different ways to prune themand it all depends on the variety you have. And Lavender! Thats a very different animal! As Steve has already said, theyre sub-shrubs, which means theyre not really shrubs, and theyre not really perennials, but kind of a cross between the two! You definitely cannot cut the old stems down below where you can see any new growth starting, so if you have old lavenders that have gotten big, you will probably never be able to get them all the way back down short again. If lavender has gotten big, you CAN prune it back enough to get it to fill in and look bushier, but just be sure youre always leaving at least a couple visible leaf buds below your cut. I dont like tall, woody looking lavender, so I keep mine short from the very beginning. New plants I leave do their own thing until after theyre done blooming. Then I cut them back severely and let them fill in short and bushy for the rest of the season. I then leave that growth on over winter, and when theyre just starting to grow the following spring I cut them back almost all the way to the ground, making sure theres either new growth left on the individual stems, or else that I can see new growth coming directly out of the base of the plant. For older plants, if you want to get them back short/shorter again, there are a couple things you can try. If theyre more than a couple feet tall, this will probably NOT work! If theyre shorter than that, you can cut them back as far as possible, still leaving at least a couple leaf buds on each stem, and that will often force new growth further down the stem, and then you cut them gradually back further and further, OR, you can cut about a third of the stems all the way down, and that will often force new growth directly out of the crown, and then you cut down another third and wait again, and then cut off the last third. Either way, theres a fairly good chance you can gradually get them back down, BUT, since lavender reseeds so easily, I find it easier to just leave a few of the seedlings come up new each year, and then I dont have to worry too much about how I handle the older ones. If they last a couple more years, thats greatif they dont, they dont! So, thats the poop on lavender! (Hopefully not cat poop!) There are a few other fairly common perennials that are sub-shrubs too, like lavender cotton (Santolina), so if you have anything that "should be" a perennial, but feels "woody" like a shrub, be a little bit careful until you identify it for sure. Other than that, I cant really think of any other perennials that require much special treatment at this time of the year. My Gaura I cut down partway in fall and dont cut all the way down in spring until I can clearly see new growth starting, but thats one thats not totally reliable in z5. And I agree with David about things that are evergreen. With things like Heuchera that are usually evergreen all winter, I just pull together the newest leaves in the middle, and then cut around the outside of the plant, trimming off all the older leaves that are starting to get a little ratty looking. By getting rid of some of the older leaves, you also promote faster growth of the new leaves, so they get a "fresh" look more quickly. So anything you have that still looks pretty good, just go over them and trim off anything that isnt looking so good anymore. Everything else that didnt stay evergreen, I recommend cutting all the way downmeaning an inch or two above the ground, but, since its been so warm out already, watch carefully to be sure your not cutting off new growth too. Lordy! This was just gonna be a quick little post here! I think its bedtime! Nighty-night, Skybird P.S. Just to repeat something Ive said around here before, Mary Ann, the only dumb question is the one you dont ask, so dont be afraid to check in with us diehards when youre wondering something. ;-)

Well, I am quite thrilled to read these great responses! I live in Zone 7, but our Winter is still long. The zones just refer to the extremes in temperature, not how long it lasts. I have noticed volunteer tomatoes come out earlier than I would choose to plant out. So, I can watch for that as a sign. I do not have any trouble with legginess of my tomato seedlings. I have a picture window that faces full-South, and shelves there (for seedling starting in Winter) outfitted with shop-lights. I read somewhere that it is important to use fresh bulbs (fluorescent tubes) as the light diminishes over time. I do not get new ones every year, but if one seems to put out less (judging by the plants), I use that on my alpine strawberry seedlings or something else that doesn't mind. I want to start even earlier because I'd like to keep tomato strains true when I grow them out. I plan to grow out severl this year, and if one flowers first for a week, then they are in the clear, and I can mark those fruits, and then not really worry about the rest. I guess what I mean is that an early & staggered start will allow me to focus on each plant as it comes into bloom, selecting from that, and moving on to the next one. I do have some limitations (medically), so it would be easier to focus on them staggered rather then so many at one time. It may not work out the way I hope, but I figure it is a good experiment for this year. By choosing good varieties for this (my un-familiarity with varieties hurts my experiment here) I can better insure success. The funny thing is that I don't really eat tomatoes--except in spaghetti sauce. BUT, everyone else loves them, and I find there is a group involved with tomatoes that have a zeal for the plant like no other vegetable/fruit. A great deal of home-breeding is going on, and I find it the most fascinating thing. Tomatoes provide a great opportunity to study genetics at home, and to look very intensely at varietal development in plants. I guess I am hooked for a reason not common to most, but I am hooked. So, I will try my experiment this year, and see how it works for me. I am thankful at the varieties/categories I see mentioned. When mentioning "use determinate or dwarf" plants, how can I find out which is which? I have consulted some websites, but is there a thorough tomato base out there? Keep the posts coming! Happy Holidays, Robin

Thanks guys for the compliments! I think the original photo that pammyfaye posted may be a little overwhelming because of the color. Although I like the overall composition it may not be to everyones liking. My staircase is full of family photo's, documents and city/state history. Also a few local artist B&W charcoal drawings. I collect old frames so I find old family stuff to put in them to hang in the staircase.