NJTEA,
I am also from NJ and I cant wait for some warm weather.
Where are you getting the temp information as compared to years previous ?

-Trim

I was just thinking the same thing yesterday. I am so sick of the cold!

ditto. I want spring - I even want torrid blazing summer so I can see my new tropical garden and swim...and I am not a summer person.

That one day a while back when it was fifty deg. with no wind - what bliss- I was out there in my t-shirt and my little girl kept stepping from "summer" to "winter" across our yard's equator , sun and thaw on one side, shade and snow on the other.

plus side - lots of snow is good for replenishing reservoirs and groundwater, but I will take the rest of the year's precipitation in rain, please, God.

flowers bloom a long time. what have you got up? we have snow and tommy crocus, eranthis, hellebore, snowdrops and wintersweet.

hang in there - spring in a week.

Lisa

Trimbleman, I got the initial info off the AccuWeather website.

Then this morning I found the link below - which adds to my discouragement.

Lisa, our reservoirs are so full after the last couple of years of heavy precip that they can't hold any more! Have you seen Spruce Run - it's just about overflowing!!!

Here is a link that might be useful: Discouraging Weather

The cold is one thing, most plants can shrug it off; it's the wet. My salvia greggii sailed through most of the winter with green leaves, and would have been OK but for the last couple of wet snows; they are at least killed to the ground. For me it was a mixed bag of damage. Quince lost 90% of their flower buds, and my neighbor's camellia took heavy bud damage. Other plants seem OK, if late. Magnolia buds are tight and late, which is a good thing, since they may miss a late hard freeze, and deciduous flowering shrubs are showing good bud formation. Oh yes, the cold weather has made for a long witch hazel season.
Lastly, something tells me we're over the hump. Things like tiarella are beginning to make new growth, as are johnny-jump-ups. It won't be long before those empty garden spaces are filled with new life. At least I've only had to do light weeding so far, and now that the snow's off the ground there has been time to for a much needed late winter clean-up, and even a little mulching. My main problem is far too many tender plants that can't be planted until mid May - it a jungle in there.

Who isn't???
But I have some good news!!!
We saw our first Robin on Sunday!!! Spring is coming!!!

The blooming hellebores right outside my front door are an encouragement each day, if they aren't covered in snow. The Phila Flower Show was a nice shot in the arm, hopefully enough to carry me over to whenever spring finally arrives.

Finally, yesterday a few of the crocuses bloomed and the one patch of snowdrops that is out from under the snow is showing signs of blooming soon.

The hellebores are coming along but I think it's going to be a while yet before they bloom.

Has anyone noticed that every season we have lately is abnormal is some way (too hot, too cold, too wet, too dry, etc.) I long for normal, predictable, boring weather again.

You're right, NJoasis. We no longer get the gentle all day summer rains we got when I was a kid - now we get downpours, and I believe we are experiencing more wind. I remember playing on our front porch on rainy days. When I moved back to that same house to take care of my other, you couldn't sit on the porch in the rain because it was just too hard accompanied by too much wind.

I say this because I HATE wind and am "afraid" of it (grew up in Ohio and one of my earliest memories is of a tornado) - now it seems the wind blows almost constantly.

I have lettuce growing in my garden. Seems like spring is on the way.

My Gladiolas (sp) POPPED UP!!!!!!! Oh happy Day!!

Glads are one of the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen. But I thought they were a tender bulb (corm?) in NJ. Don't you have to overwinter them indoors so they don't freeze to death? Has anyone had any luck NOT digging them up every year? Because that's quite the chore and that's why I don't have any.

Christine

Christine,

I first planted my bulbs last year and the flowers were stunning!! My DH thought that he had dug up all of my bulbs, but apparently he missed a few!!!! I have one coming up it's about 3 1/2 inches long, the other is about 1 inch high!!! I am very excited! If I were you, I would try, apparently they don't have to be dug up here!!!!

Happy Gardening!!!!!!!

Near to the foundation of the house, where heat really builds up on the South side, I have seen gladioli come back, year after year in this area.
I am sure, by this date, most gardeners have crocus blooming, if they planted them. It is always impressive to me how we can have crocus and then weeks and weeks before the trees even begin to get any green at all.

Glads are hardy here with mulch, as are several Crinums, and deep-planted Amaryllis (mulched).

What about other tender bulbs, like canna, tuberous begonias, and dahlias? Those have to be dug up and overwintered here in NJ, right?

My glads survived the winter, and I plant them on the south facing foundation of my house.
I am waiting to see if my canna survived, but I wouldn't count on begonias and dahlias making it in zone 6, I think they would rot. I dug up my dahlias, stored them in bags with vermiculite, and they survived fine.

Folks, it's Zone 5-6. Get used to it. And check out the Old Farmer's Almanac; they did predict a cool spring for our area. They even got the dates of the snow in March on the nose.
The great thing about NJ's climate & weather is that it's not the same same same thing all the time. You can have plants that N Englanders can't, if you put them in facing S-SW & in lee of a wall or the side of the house. You also can have bulbs that need a winter chilling, and birch trees, unlike the folks down south. We have the best climate in the East, here, because we have a little of everything.
The extreme swings are due to the climate change we are creating ourselves; write your congressperson & yell about signing the Kyoto accords, wanting more fuel efficient cars, etc. Dump the SUV.
My glads always survive winter; at least the ones I plant facing south next to the stucco foundation. Some of the ones I plant out in the open also have overwintered for several years. I view them as gifts.

It is about the wind! I'm at a lot of kids baseball games and we all mutter from under our blankets "if the wind would just die down, it might not be so bad out here".

I agree with you about the wind, Karen64. It's been abnormally windy for a couple of years now, kinda coincides with the wet weather - not counting the last few weeks, of course.