The daffodils are coming up?!? I'm suffering whiplash here, having spent last spring (and all of my garden-aware time; the last 9 years) in Minnesota. Nothing comes up until April there! Even the early stuff. Of course, last year the snow hadn't melted off until the end of April.

I'll have to get out and start looking at my front yard. I put in hundreds of bulbs this last October at my new place.

Must be springish here in Garfield Co. 'cause the 45mph wind is blowing the compost right off the top of my new plot.
K

Sometimes foliage of spring bulbs pops up out of the ground in December here. This year? Nada. Nothing. No rain. No green.

I don't know if we'll have spring if it doesn't rain.....our drought here is in about its 18th month and our soil moisture is ridiculously low. Even our "usual" winter weeds aren't sprouting.

Usually I have lots of little rosettes of winter/spring weed foliage, and wildflower foliage as well, including poppies, larkspur and bluebonnets. This year, except for a small part of the butterfly bed that gets water when I water the soil around the foundation, no wildflowers have sprouted. It is going to be a long winter if rain doesn't fall.

Gamebird, It is normal for our bulb foliage to sprout in January, or even in December, depending on where you are in the state. I suppose in the northernmost parts of the state, some people may not see bulb foliage until February.

In Fort Worth (zone 8) our spring bulb foliage sprouted in November/December and the earlier daffodils and hyacinths usually bloomed in late February to early March, followed by tulips in late March to late April.

Here in southern OK, zone 7B, the foliage usually sprouts in December to January and the earlier bulbs, like daffodils and hyacinths, usually bloom in late Feb. to late March, followed by the tulips and others.

There again, I guess it might be a little later the further north in the state you go. After Minnesota, tt will take some getting used to, won't it? Daffodils, of course, can take a lot of cold. Some years it snows on them after they've bloomed and the snow doesn't seem to bother them much, if at all.

Dawn

Just hearing this does my heart good. :-)

I saw an entire flock of robins at Christmas time. But then, even when growing up on NJ (much colder than OK) I could find them if I looked in the swamps.

George
Tahlequah, OK

New Jersey has swamps????

George,

I always thought of robins as 'spring' birds, but some years they overwinter here, so that's kind of messing me up a little.

We have a lot of birds this winter, like tufted titmice, blue jays, cardinals, black-capped chickadees, vireos, sparrows of all kinds, doves, crows, etc. etc. etc. One sign of spring, though, is when the goldfinch population that eat at our feeders all winter long start heading north, but that won't happen for a few more weeks yet.

Oh, and the return of the Purple Martins, which some years happens as early as mid-February here. That's one of my favorite 'bird signs' of spring.

Dawn

I've noticed some sporadic forsythia blooms this week, but I fear with the drought (I'm in Pontotoc County) and this latest cold snap, our true Spring may be truly "anticlimatic".

I have daffodils planted deeply out where the ground is good and very shallowly up here by the house where it's rocky. The shallow ones always bloom 3-4 weeks earlier than the deep ones. I have had them bloom as early as the last few days of January, but this year they won't. It's too cold and dry. After that 60" of rain that we got through last summer, we've only had a couple inches since Sept.

For me the first sign of spring is the wild Johnny Jump Ups. Unlike the daffs they're native. When they bloom I know it's spring.

Saw the first tulips and crocus popping up this morning. Lost a bunch of them last year to gofers. Solved that problem, my kittens are cats now and did a job on them and the voles and pack rats, good kitties curlers

Snowbishop,

As the drought conditions deepen here in southcentral OK, I don't have very high hopes for spring either.

Dorothy,

My shallowly planted ones are up just a tiny bit, but I don't know how well they'll bloom because they are so far from the house that they get no irrigation, and there wasn't enough rain all year long in 2008 to give me much hope.

My more deeply planted ones sprout and bloom late too, but they are in sandier soil that holds little moisture (although I have watered that area near the house a lot), so I kinda wonder what 2008 did to them--they aren't sprouting any foliage yet.

Curlers,

Our cats have been really good at wiping out all the little forest and field rodents. I wish they (or the dogs) would do something about the squirrels. Squirrels aren't very garden-friendly.

Dawn

Dawn, we had trouble with the squirrels first 2 years here, Hubby is a pretty good shot with a 22 rifle. no problem. Now for those darn moles , all over the place.

We didn't have trouble with squirrels the first 7 or 8 years here, but then our squirrel-chasing Australian Shepherd, Sheila, who is now 14 years old, went deaf a couple of years ago. Now that she can't hear them chattering in the trees, she can't chase them. She used to keep them pretty far from the house and garden.

We are very close to the Red River, so you can't shoot them all....more just keep coming from the tree-packed acreage along the river.

Our other dogs don't chase them the way Sheila used to and they wouldn't be such a huge problem except they bury tons of pecans and acorns in the raised beds in the veggie garden which then gives us tons of little tree sprouts to pull out or dig out.

I haven't had trouble with the squirrels eating fruit or veggies though, so it could be worse.

The squirrels last year were a voracious bunch at my place. They got every single peach and a fair amount of other veggies. Then my dog grew up enough to actually run the critters down - the results were very messy. Living in Tulsa city limits I can't use a .22 ... but I discovered I still have good aim with the new, higher powered BB guns :-)

Worse than the squirrels are the Northern Mockingbirds. Great for bugs ... but devestating on the tomatoes. To help alleviate that problem I took down about 50 small trees and shrubs they used for nesting. The denser the foliage, the more they liked to nest in it. Only thing left are the large shade trees which they don't nest in. Hopefully it will help.

Brian,

Squirrels haven't bothered our peaches or plums yet, but that might be because the cats "lie in wait" under the fruit trees a lot.

There's a couple of tricks that might help keep the mockingbird out of the tomtoes.

First, in May or early June--before you have tomatoes ripening, hang hard (not satin because they'll unravel), red, ball-shaped Christmas ornaments in the tomato plants. The mockingbirds will peck them, get nothing, and get disgusted. Consequently, they'll tend to leave the real tomatoes alone because they'll already learned that those red round things in the bushes aren't edible.

Secondly, when birds are pecking tomatoes, often what they really want is water. Just putting a birdbath, a flat piepan full of water, etc. is enough to get them the water they need and they'll leave your tomatoes alone.

Third, you can drape bird netting over the caged, staked or trellised tomato plants, but you'll have to have the netting higher than the cages and extended out from the plants a bit, or the birds can sit on the netting and still peck fruit. You can protect your row or rows of tomato plants by putting a hoophouse over them, using PVC pipe bent into arches that go over the row and putting a large piece of bird netting (I've seen it in the 20' x 20
size in local big box stores) over the PVC pipe framing. The key is you cannot leave any opening thru which the birds can get inside.

I never had much trouble with the wild critters in Fort Worth, but here in rural Love County, I have to fight them for every bit of the harvest.

Dawn

Thanks Dawn ... I'll definitely try a bird bath and the Christmas ornaments. I've thought about netting ... I'll do that if I have to.

Hi all, This is Paul, Curlers better half,lol.I moved here from Florida 5years ago, We used fishing line strung about 8-10 foot above the ground over the swimming pool. The seagulls could not see it and after a few times hitting it would stay away. Might work on the mocking birds.

LOL... that's certainly a novel way of keeping gulls away. I lived in Clearwater until 2003 and I have to admit, it's not something I would have thought of.

Hi Brian nice to meet you , I moved here from Maderia beach area just north of Clearwater, Probably been by your house a few times. What a great bunch of folks here in Oklahoma, We built us alittle log cabin just west of Tulsa near Keystone Lake, If you need anything let me know, Paul

Hi Paul,

Nice to meet you. I thought you and Brian might like to know that some people also use clear fishing line strung around an unfenced garden in a similar way to keep deer away from the garden. I've never tried it myself, and suspect you'd have to have to string it either high enough or wide enought that deer couldn't jump it.

If anyone tries the clear fishing line to keep the mockingbirds away, I hope you'll let the rest of us know if it works in case any of us develop a bird problem.

In my yard and garden, the mockingbirds only bother the cats by diving at them and pecking at them the way blue jays do. The mockingbirds are pretty bold. Even though they don't bother my tomatoes, they do like to sit on the shoulder or head of the scarecrow which, of course, makes him less scarey to the the other birds.

Dawn

Hi Paul ... you might have been by my house if you were in the area of Clearwater High School. I used to listen to their football games ... whether I wanted to or not:-) I do miss Florida ... I love growing the tropical type plants ... and muskmelon's and peppers went wild for me. On the other hand, there are a lot of plants that don't do well in that zone although I never experienced the heat that we have here in Oklahoma. Last summer was my first in OK ... and I really thought I'd melt into a big puddle even though I've lived in various southern regions for 10 years now.

If I think of anything I need I'll let you know :-) And Keystone is a beautiful area so I'm sure you're enjoying it. At least you have a body of water close by. All I have is Tupelo Creek and mosquitos.

Hi Brien, Been all over the state of Florida.You know the heat doesn't bother me as much as the cold, We are both on disablity here and need to stay busy. Sandy's into pine needle-gourd basket weaving and I'm into bunch of stuff oil painting, flutemaking leatherwork and gargening. We built our place here with hardly any help, not bad for 2 olde farts. But I love Oklahoma and the people here are simply amazing. Are you finding it hard on your tropicals here?I might like to try some. Dawn thanks for all help, wish I knew how to get pics on here. Paul and Sandra

Paul and Sandra,

I am technologically challenged so I don't do photos, but several people like Lisa, Randy, Ilene, Carol and many others do. So, if you post a thread asking someone to explain to you how to post a photo, I'm sure you're get some very helpful responses.

And, y'all, if you've only been here a couple of years, you haven't experienced a true hot summer, although I'll concede you probably have experienced a few hot and humid days.

In our first summer here in 1999 (and we came from Ft. Worth, where temps in the 100-105 range are often the summer norm), we had a hot spell in August where the temperatures were in the 111-112-113 range for several days. It was awful. I thought to myself that surely this was the "worst summer ever", and that we'd surely never see heat like that again. I was wrong. : ) In 2006, I don't think we got quite that hot--more likely in the 108-110 range, but it was also dreadful.

After spending my first 39 years in Fort Worth, I thought I could handle any heat, but Oklahoma's heat is worse than what I ever experienced in Texas. And it is also colder here in the winter.....so our family managed to move someplace that is both colder in the winter and hotter in the summer. That was poor planning, wasn't it? But we love it here, and the people are the nicest, friendliest folks you'll find anywhere.

Dawn

curlers - I have sent you an email. Carol

Paul ... I got rid of most of my tropicals ... they were simply too big to keep indoors. All I have left is a ponytail palm and a cardboard palm I started from seed about 8 years ago. The cardboard is trying its best to die on me ... it did great outside ... and did fine inside when I lived in Atlanta, but it sure doesn't like being inside here. It still has two stems of leaves so I'm hoping I can keep it going until spring gets here. It's incredibly slow growing but I'm rather fond of it.

If you've never tried Brugmansia's you might give them a shot. Dawn and one other person on this forum are extremely knowledgeable about them ... some probably aren't classed as tropical but what the heck. They're beautiful regardless. I had 6 potted brugs in Atlanta but had to leave them behind when I moved so I'm starting over again here.

Maybe that's a thread you could start ... suggestions on tropicals that grow well indoors :-)

Dawn ... the heat this past summer may not have been the worst you had ... but it was more than enough for me. I grew up in Minnesota and North Dakota and it wasn't unheard of for the temps to hit 110 or above ... but it was for a day or two. Atlanta was hot and humid ... but not like Tulsa. The only thing I've experienced close to this was when I lived in San Antonio ... that could be truly miserable during the summer.

Brian

Brian,

I've never lived anywhere else except Fort Worth or southern OK, and both have some humidity occasionally, but nothing like you'd see in Tulsa. I would imagine that if Tulsa's humidity is like San Antonio's or Houston's, though, that it would be miserable.

The thing about the heat that I've always thought (and said) is "Once it gets over 105, it doesn't matter, it is just plain old hot". And, for the first 39 years of my life, I believed that. And, I was wrong. Once it gets over about 108, you cannot get comfortable, it hurts to breath in the hot, dry air, and air conditioners (even very good ones) cannot cool down the house enough. I love hot weather, but the occasional "hotter than average" weather here in southern OK makes me ill. I mean physically ill. When I go to a fire in that kind of heat, I get light-headed, dizzy and nauseous, and I am not even fighting the fire--just trying to get enough water and Gatorade in the firefighters to keep them from getting heat exhaustion or heatstroke.

It could be that I am more sensitive to extreme heat, and high heat indexes too, as I get older. I am 49 years old and, as recently as 8 or 10 years ago, I could stay outside in the heat all day every day all summer long. I just can't tolerate that kind of heat any more. Maybe I am just a wimp.

Y'all did have some really high heat index numbers in your part of the state last year. At least at my end of the state, when it is very hot it is also very dry, so the heat index often is only 3 to 5 degrees higher than the temperature.

Dawn

Brian, there used to be a lady on the forum (OKC1) that grew brugmansias in the ground and was able to overwinter them in the ground. I need to try that, but haven't found the space yet to do it. Good luck, they are beautiful plants! I grow their counterpart, datura, which is hardy here (I'm in OKC) and comes back every year. Love the blooms on it.

It is so dry here that I am afraid I may lose some things this year. I'm not planning on putting much out this spring except for some pipevines I am growing from seed (Aristolochia fimbriata and A. serpentaria). Both are natives. A. fimbriata has silver veining on the leaves and gets about 1' to 2' tall, and serpentaria is about the same. A. serpentaria has been pretty much lost to native areas due to commercial development, etc., so a lot of people are growing it in order to re-establish it as a native plant. It is a host plant for the Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly.

Susan

What I remember most about San Antonio was sitting on my balcony one night ... it was 2 AM ... and the temp was 102. That wasn't unusual. Humidity was worse than Tulsa or Atlanta. Anybody that lives for any time in SA (and other areas too, I'm sure) understands why siesta's came into being. I'd go to a walking track at night ... but not before 11 PM ... and it was always packed until 2 or 3 in the morning.

I will be putting my brugs in the ground this year. Didn't have time to do anything with my yard last year so didn't even try. Wanted time to get a feel for the place (I have 2/3 of an acre) and think about what made sense. The conclusions I came to were to do raised veggie beds, get rid of all the shrubs, crepe myrtles and miscellaneous junk trees the couple that had owned it for 42 years had planted and replace with fruit trees, move the patio from the west side of the house to the south side under a large pecan tree (and install it properly this time LOL), get a Bobcat and slope the area around the house itself so rain would go away instead of puddle around the foundation. It got so bad last spring it actually ran under the house through the crawl space vents.

The west side of the house they put in two poorly installed goldfish ponds. One I got rid of last year, the other goes this year ... especially since the pump gave out this fall and I checked the cost of a replacement. Location of the pond is also bad ... hell, the placement of everything on the west side of the house is bad ... which is why most is already gone. I'm going to build a pergola from the door leading out of the garage down the length of the house on the west. It has no shade what-so-ever and just gets blasted in the summer. Going to plant vines on it for shade. Can't do trees, even fast grown trees, as all the sewer pipes are in that area and tree roots and sewer pipes just don't mix.

I also have to remodel the house itself ... literally everything. Sigh ... I should be done sometime before I hit retirement.

brian

Brian,

You know, you'll never be done. That's just the way it is. (smile)

I truly love San Antonio, but I couldn't live in that constant rain-forest type humidity. I especially like visiting SA in the fall and winter when it is merely "hot" there, and not roasting/steaming/broiling hot.

I think your brugs should do fine in the ground about 9 months out of the year. Are you going to overwinter them in the ground? Or, will you dig them up and overwinter them in pots indoors? I think with perfect drainage and heavy mulch they might survive the winter in the ground, but I am not sure--you're gardening in an area one zone colder than mine.

Your "to do" list is ambitious and I am going to enjoy reading along as you tell us about all the improvements you're making.

I like Crape Myrtles, especially the very old ones that get humongously tall (if they are in an appropriate setting for their size), but they are so overdone that it is tiresome. They are also overpruned....which we call Crape Murders......

I love the idea of the pergola, and there are so many wonderful vines you can grow on a pergola!

You can spend the next few years redoing everything and getting it just so....and, then, what will you do when you retire? Hmmm. Maybe re-do it all over again?

I have to admit that as time goes on, I am working harder and harder to make our landscape low-maintenance so that we don't have to spend our "happy, golden years" doing nothing but mowing and weedeating.

Dawn

I'm pretty much trying to get a self sustaining landscape. By the time I'm done I want minimal lawn and lots of perennial beds that I just need to add compost to and mulch. The veggie beds ... well, veggies are different and I'm willing to do a lot more because I get to eat the results :-)

As for when I retire ... I'm looking at moving to Costa Rica. Much of the country is a very consistent temp ... you've got tons of biodiversity ... it's inexpensive to live there ... the government is very stable. Then I can grow my tropicals LOL.