Lots and lots of daffodils. One early bird had a bud just before the last really hard freeze a couple of weekends ago, so I brought it inside to bloom. The rest are about ready to open.

I see a little color on the forsythia; this is its first year. New leaves and some flower buds on the flowering quince.

A miniature rose is leafing out. I got it for christmas in 2005, nursed it through the winter, and pruned it way back last spring. It bloomed all summer. I had a least a rose a week from it. I never got it planted out, so I put it in a protected area on the west side of the house for the winter. It came through in great shape.

My asparagus ferns in pots in the garage are sending up shoots. I'd set them outside except they are sharing a pot with a geranium and I don't want to drag them in and out. How much frost can a geranium handle, anyway?

Chrysanthemums, crocus, iris, spinach, radishes, garlic, columbine, peony, sedums are all growing. I lost a couple of clumps of oxblood lily. I love them; next time they will get planted closer to the house, on the south side.

The hairy vetch cover crop is starting to grow again. It will get turned under when it's time to plant the blackeyed peas.

Tomato, eggplant, and pepper, and onion seedlings are outside under plastic tub "greenhouses". I bring those into the garage on cold nights. The onions need to get set out in the garden. Yeah, I know I'm pushing it a little on the tomatoes. Those guys will be in gallon pots by the time they get into the garden.

Gayle

HI, lost 40 ft of fence Saturday in the wind storm so I can not tell you what is coming up in that bed and will be next week before it is fixed. But in my other beds:

Daylilly's
Rosebushes budding out
Yaupon Holly has new growth
Forsythia is budding but not in bloom yet.
Weeping Peach the buds are swelling but not out yet.
Daffs everywhere some quite tall and almost ready to bloom
Dwarf Daffs are blooming and they look fantastic.
Peonies, slow going right now but a few are poking up
Asiatic Lilles up and going great guns
Oriental Lillies, trying to push up

Under the fence: ??????????????????

I have tons of stuff in the garage but I am cleaning out the beds I can get to and plan on planting the week-end of time change. I know still may have a freeze, I have saved all kinds of containers to put on them so I am giving it a try. No tomatoes yet but will have soon.

Here in southern Oklahoma, it's been in the 75 to 80 degree range this week, so....

Daffodils are blooming.

Fruit trees are budding and some blooms should open within the next week.

Early spring wildflowers are blooming.

Oak trees are getting ready to bloom, but native pecans still look dormant.

Redbuds budding.

Roses are leafing out....have had tiny new leaves coming out since January.

Hollyhocks, iris, verbena bonariensis, chamomile, catnip, catmint, and other hardy herbs and perennial flowers have a lot of foliage up.

Onions, leeks and shallots are in the ground and greening up nicely.

Moths are congregating around the porch light at night, frogs are croaking/peeping/singing from mid-afternoon on each day.

Purple Martin 'scout' birds are back.

Water lillies putting on new leaves.

Two tomato plants in large containers have 8 to 12 blooms each, and a couple of very tiny fruits. I expect to have ripe fruit from these two plants in April.

Other tomato seedlings are about 6"-10" tall and are now hardening off on the south-facing portion of our wraparound porch. They'll be coming inside on Thursday night, though, as the low temp is forecast to be right at freezing.

Nasturtium plants are also hardening off on the porch. They have 4 to 8 leaves each. I hope to be able to get them into the ground by mid-March, depending on the weather.

I'm mowing the winter rye grass about every third day as it is now growing rapidly....hardly had to mow it all winter as the recurring ice/snow storms kept it low and slow-growing.

Everything in the landscape around the house survived the weekend windstorm just fine, but some of the large trees in the woods east of our house snapped right in half. We've got some clean-up to do there, obviously.

The bluebonnets alongside our driveway have come up and are about an inch tall.

And, finally, the hens are now laying eggs daily, after laying them sporadically (every second or third day) all winter long.

Spring is on its' way!

Dawn, My winter rye has gone crazy this week but going to be out of state this week-end so dont get to mow. Gee, I sound disappointed?! I did notice today that the bermuda is greening up around the driveway, but with the cold nights predicted that probably will change by Saturday

Susan, should I go ahead and transplant my dorment Datura, I am planning the butterfly garden.

Happy planting. Stephanie

I would not put the datura out until mid-late April. They like really hot temps before they will really take off, so you don't want to plant them too soon, especially since we may have some freezing temps between now and then.

You folks planting winter rye and hairy vetch must have lots of garden room! I envy you. BTW, hairy vetch, if you want to leave a bit of it up, is the host plant for the Eastern Tailed Blue and Orange Sulphur butterflies.

Dawn, mmmmmmm, those eggs sound so good. We used to raise chickens when I was young. Had a pet chicken named, you got it, Henny Penny! She layed a double-yolked egg on my mom's birthday one year! Do you still have some guineas around?

I need to fix up a container so I can put my moth cocoons outside, with some sticks in the container for them to climb on when they eclose. I want to be able to see them before I release them, and if I don't put them in a container, they will emerge at night and fly off before I get the chance. As soon as they do, I need to take pics of them to post on the forum.

Forgot, my clematis is putting out new growth, too!

Susan

Good morning girls,
I am kind of blue because I am afraid that the cold temps this morning might have ruined my chances once again for those Japanese plums I like so much :(
I lost them last year due to a freeze in mid March. I've been watching that tree and it is currently in tight cluster stage. Went out a little while ago and my outdoor thermometer reads 18 degrees!

A few days ago I saw this coming and strung some christmas lights just in case but I don't know if they will save them.

On another note, my roses are trying to leaf out.
None of my other fruit trees are doing much of anything besides that contrary plum.
Wisteria is leafing out

The only planting I've done in the greenhouse so far is nasturtiums but I plan on doing all of my veggies and other flower seed this week.

Good morning, everyone!

Steffie: I know it just breaks your heart that you won't be able to stay home and mow that rye grass!!! When I know a hard freeze is coming, I skip a mowing and let the grass get a little tall, knowing the freeze will turns the tips brown. THEN, a day or so later I mow and the grass is back to its lovely vibrant green.

My bermuda is greening up, too, and that makes me so sad.... I was sort of hoping the drought had killed it all, but no such luck!

Susan: I do still have the guineas and they are as helpful and as amusing as ever. I'm down to only 8, though, from the original 20.

Last year, I had a guinea hen sitting on a nest with about 50 eggs and a large chicken snake got into the coop and ate every egg, so no crop of guinea babies in '06!

By the way, I've had hardly any grasshoppers or ticks (or, in fact, insect pests of any kind) the last couple of years, so the guineas are doing their job.

Pokesalad, I had the same problem last year with my plums blooming too early and it will probably happen this year, too, as the first blooms opened yesterday.

Y'all, last week, I forgot to mention that the larkspur and blue veronica are up and getting quite large. And the 'Jane' magnolia is forming buds, although the deer come through and nibble them off about once a week. Sigh.

My flowering currant (Ribes odoratum, I think) has buds and should bloom any time now. However, a late freeze last year really damaged my banana shrub (Michelia figo) and then the drought killed it. I know I'll have to plant another one this spring, even though it is marginally hardy here, as I just adore the fragrance of the blooms.

The first tomatoes that have formed on the two Better Bush tomatoes in containers are about the size of the tip of my little finger. Now, if I can just remember to carry those two plants in every night when a freeze is threatened! I almost forgot to bring them in Saturday night and I would have lost them for sure.

I was in Fort Worth on Friday and the redbuds were blooming! I loved that.

On a more serious note....after good rain in January, we had virtually none here in February, and that is not a good thing! (It reminds me of the last two winters, when a lack of rain in Feb. and Mar. was a sign of what was to come.....) Did y'all have good rainfall in February? We had only about 1/2", after receiving over 3" in January.

Got to get out to the garden and start preparing the beds for tomatoes. I want to till the soil, work in some organic amendments and a little Espoma tomato food and then cover that area with a dark-colored landscape fabric. It will be time to set out a few tomato plants with Wall O'Waters soon.

I hope everyone has a lovely day today and a wonderful week.

Dawn

Dawn, I'm so sorry about the guinea eggs! Sneaky snake! Can you fix the pen so the snakes can't get in? I don't know, just wondering. Wish they would let me have a couple of guineas in the city! I'd worry about them getting out of the yard, though.

Very dry in OKC in February. I got out yesterday and watered for about 3 hours, trying desperately to not lose blooms on my hydrangeas, azaleas, lilies, etc.

I use Espoma, too, their Holly Green, Bulb Food, you name it. I really like it - it's as close to organic as I can get, it seems. Although I think I will try the alfalfa pellets and Neptune this year, if I can find them locally. I will also stick with the chicken manure, since I can use much less of it than cow manure.

Dawn, after you lay down your landscape fabric, do you put down mulch over it, cut an "X" in the fabric and plant your plants? That's what I want to do, too. I bought some fabric, but it's the really cheapo stuff, so I don't know if it will work very well. I do think I may resort to using some Roundup as soon as it's warm enough, to kill the grass (bermuda and crab) in the front of my house (about 200 sf - small area), and kind of build a lasagna bed for butterfly plants.

What do you think? Will it work?

Susan

Dawn, I need to get me some guineas. Speaking of tomatoes reminds me.. I have to get out there and plant my better boy seeds today along with more veg and flower seeds. Have you seen that wonderful forecast for the next few weeks? Supposed to be 40's for lows and 60-70's for highs. We might get a few plums after all. We got a lot of rain last month but not a lot in Jan other than that what the ice storm gave us.

Susan, I would love to grow azaleas but every time I've planted them in the past, they died on me pretty quick, I must have a black thumb when it comes to them i guess lol

My Fall planted, pansies are beginning to bloom again, and the tulips bulbs planted last fall have sent up a leaf fold peaking about 2 inches above the mulch. The earliest blooming, ornamental cherry trees began blooming last week. I have not checked yet, but the hard freeze we had night before last may have killed those cherry blooms and buds.

The afternoon prior to our most recent hard freeze I noticed that the 'Corinthian Pink' ornamental peaches were only about a week of warm temps away from full bloom burst. Hopefully they were not damaged, with the early morning hard freeze; enough to prevent the tree's lovely bloom coverage.

Most of my Azaleas did not make it through the icy winter. Even though they were kept faily moist, they still severly stressed from the previous winter and summer droughts. I suspect that is why they did not survive through the severe icing storm which occured just less than 2 months ago.

My potted camellias are doing fine, and last week I planted one of them at a friend's house when we also moved one of her short scarlet oaks which was not getting enough sun and planted in its old planting spot a taller Scarlet oak which now receives full sun in the top third of its height. Both the Oaks were still dormant and the recently planted one now reaches up above the privacy fence, since that tree is about 10' to 11' tall.

On the same day, we replace her dead, one-gallon sized 'Blue Boy' holly with a three-gallon size potted 'Blue Boy', in the hope that it will live long enough to help her recently estabilished 'Nellie R. Stevens' hollies produce more berries this year.

My 'Miss Kim' lilacs seem to be just starting to bud.

The Young Dawn Redwood 'Gold Rush', my Oaks, Chaste trees, and Rose of Sharon tree, do not seem to be breaking dormancy, yet.

Hardy Hibiscus are still dormant, but the 14 tuber bulbs of my green leaf and yellow flowering cannas are emerging from the peatmoss I potted them in; even though they are still in the garage where after digging them last fall, I stored them all winter long.

There are 7 recently purchased new, one gallon azaleas, and two of my potted camellias arranged in planting order along with a large bag of dry peat, and (10) 3 cubic feet bags of pine mulch which I plan to use tomorrow for creating the well draining acidic bed for those 9 potted shrubs. These azaleas are supposed to stagger bloom throughout the month of April; along with the camellias' final burst of bloom.

My established climbing roses are in the earlist stage of leafing out, but my first planted; last fall, potted, shurb roses appear to still be dormant.

The soil in the yard still seems wet enough from our winter storms and recent rains that supplimental watering should not be needed at this point.

The fine blade fescue grass in my yard has remained green througout the winter and is now darker, more full and stronger. The Bermuda which is intermixed with the fescue is still dormant.

Hi Y'all!

Susan: In theory, I could fix the guinea pen where snakes can't get in, but it would require really tiny mesh, like hardware cloth and that is so expensive as the guinea's "yard" is 12' wide by 20' long.

The other option would be to let all the other guineas out of the house to free range every morning, and then lock in the guinea hen or hens who are sitting on eggs. That option tends to make the hens mad and then they refuse to sit on the eggs at all! So, I usually leave the door open so the hens came come and go, but that allows the snakes to come and go. What a quandry!

Still, I may have a solution. I have a barred rock hen who LOVES to hatch eggs. So, maybe I will put her, her nest and all the guinea eggs in a cage made of a very fine mesh wire and see if she will hatch out the guinea eggs this year. I could let her out of the cage for a little while every evening just before dark, and maybe she'll be content to return to the cage at sunset after she has had a little time to run around and dig and scratch and eat bugs.

I can't keep my guineas out of the road, although I really try. They know I watch them if they try to sneak down to the road from the front yard, so they go north into the woods for a couple of hundred yards and then sneak down to the road. Being stupid, though, they squawk and yack as they cross the road. I hear them squawking and go chase them out of the road and back up towards the house. We play that same game numerous times daily. Sometimes we do that so many times in one day that I leave them locked up in their pen the next day!

I suspect that guineas wouldn't last a month in an urban setting, unfortunately.

Pokesalad, You DO need some guineas! :) They have made such a difference in my battle with the roving bands of bugs!!! I am so excited about the warmer weather. Hope your seed planting goes well. And I agree with you, if March comes through with nice weather like we had today, then I think our plums have a chance!

And, y'all, I have an absolute black thumb with azaleas. I do prepare the soil properly but somewhere along the way I lose patience with the endless amounts of water they consume and I neglect them enough to let them die. The longest I've had any last for me was three years....and they only looked really good the first year. After that, it was all downhill.

Katrina: Look at how busy you have been! I hate moving trees, and there is one outside I ought to move.

My chaste tree hasn't broken dormancy yet, either, but the oaks have. My climbing roses are almost fully leafed out and are forming flower buds. They always bloom really early though.

More and more wildflowers are blooming daily.

Dawn

I've been working in the yard today, trying to rid a huge circle bed of Bermuda grass. That's all that is growing there besides four pine trees. :) Here at my new house there are no flowers besides a few mums and one rose bush, so it's basically a blank slate. That is good I guess, as I have hundreds of plants to move here from my old house. Susan, I hope I haven't lost my Acanthus mollis. There is nothing there at all except some dried up stalks from last fall. Last year was my first year growing it, so I don't know what to expect. I thought it would stay green all winter though (?).

At my old home I have daylilies up, tulips, daffodils up and blooming, Lycoris squamigera, wood hyacinths, hyacinths blooming, Salvia, but not a lot more up than that, except stuff that stayed green all winter like Hellebores, Arum Italicum, ajuga, oxalis, Heucheras, and Dianthus. I don't know if my forsythia will bloom this year after last summer's drought. It's a late blooming forsythia, but I don't even see any buds on the two shrubs yet.

I am going to move my Bald Cypress tree and my Dawn Redwood 'Gold Rush' tree here this week. I've read the Dawn Redwood transplants well. It's a young tree, less than six feet tall, and the bald cypress is only about eight feet tall. I sure hope they transplant well because I love both those trees a lot and would hate to lose them. I think my Jane magnolia died in the drought last summer. I keep hoping it will put on buds but it doesn't look promising. If not, I will buy another one because I really liked it too.

Susan: Yes, that's exactly what I do....cut the 'X', plant and then mulch. Did it in about 80% of my vegetable garden last year. It was a good investment in dollars because it saved me tons of hours that I used to spend weeding. I even put fabric down and mulched the paths. In the past, I used cardboard or newspaper but the fabric is failproof as long as you use the woven kind.

If you have the cheap kind that is perforated "to let water through", be advised that everything in the world grows through those holes, especially grasses. And I learned that the hard way!!! :) If you have that kind, just lay down newspaper or cardboard underneath it and that solves the problem.

I agree that Round-up is the only way to go to get rid of that bermuda grass to start your new bed. You know that I always try to be as organic as possible, just like you, but there are some situations where the only real solution is a chemical....and getting rid of bermuda grass demands round-up. I have spent years of my life trying to get rid of bermuda by digging it up, etc. and it just doesn't work. If you leave even the tiniest piece of a stolon, that bermuda will be back. So I say just spray the round-up once it is warm enough and be done with it. :) And studies show that Round-up breaks down quickly in the soil so I see no harm in using it.

Wolflover, Is it 'fun' to start over with a new landscape or is it too stressful at this stage to be considered fun??? When I moved here in 1999 and started from scratch with a former cow pasture, I put a lot of pressure on myself to try to get everything done 'now'. Oops! That didn't work. But, a few years later I can say that I have made a lot of progress. Of course, those darned summer droughts have made it hard at times.

Give your Jane magnolia time. Mine was severely freeze-damaged several years ago and I thought it was a goner. It finally came to life fairly late in the spring and I pruned off all the dead stuff and it rebounded fairly quickly after that. Mine has been a little slow this year too. I usually have blooms by now. I don't know how much of the slowness is from freeze-damage and how much of the slowness is because the deer keep eating the buds.

How far back are you going to prune the trees when you move them? I know the "experts" always say 50%, but I find it so hard to abide by that rule! I usually cut them back about 30% and then try to be extra vigilant about watering them that first year after they've been moved.

And, I bet you already know this....but Jane has at least six brothers and sisters (mostly sisters) and I've been toying with the idea of trying to find and plant all of them. I remember that one is "Ann" but that's the only name in my memory bank. I'll have to google to find the others. I think they came out of the U.S. Arboretum breeding program in the late 80s or early 90s.

I didn't get a lot accomplished today. The weather was gorgeous but there were huge fires almost everywhere (but not in our fire district!) and our air quality was just awful. Tomorrow, though, I'll be in the garden all day long. :)

You guys just sound so energetic. I'm energetic when ordering plants and bulbs, and then when it comes to actually digging a bed anymore, aaaarrrrrrggggggg!

I have ordered a magnolia virginiana (sweetbay magnolia) which is a host plant for the Eastern Tiger Swallowtails; persea borbonia (redbay) for spicebush swallowtails; sasafrass (for spicebush ST); lindera benzoin (for spicebush ST). I'm growing a wide variety of milkweeds (asclepias incarnata and incarnata 'Ice Ballet'; exaltata; viridis; verticillata; purpureum; speciosa; syriaca; plus curassavica annuals). Also have some wild cherry seedlings for the Viceroys and Red Spotted Purples - I hope they grow well this year. Also am getting a black willow (salix nigra) from a friend.

Gotta go - watching American Idol - will get back on tomorrow a.m.

Susan

Susan, It sure sounds like you're going to have a yard full of butterflies this year!

I haven't had much luck with the 'Ice Ballet' milkweeds. I think we are too hot and dry here perhaps, but I always have lots of the others, both native and cultivated ones. Every now and then, after I till up the soil for a new bed, I will have a native milkweed sprout. It gets two or three feet tall, has large coarse leaves, has pinkish to rose flowers and is called Showy Milkweed (Asclepias speciosa in my 1984 edition of WILDFLOWERS OF TEXAS). Haven't had one come up the last couple of years, though, so I guess it needs more rain than we've had here the last couple of years.

Did you enjoy American Idol? It was great seeing Carrie. At our house, we all thought Sanjaya and Hayley were done, and that Sundance and Sabrina would make it through to the next round. Well, appararently we were incorrect. :)

What's new in your garden and yard this week? I have annuals like zinnias and sunflowers sprouting from seed dropped by last year's plants. A lot of the herbs, like chamomile and lemon balm are getting pretty big.

My plum trees are in full bloom, which perfumes the whole yard (!) and my peach trees blooms are showing pink, so budbreak will occur any day now. Redbuds are just starting to bloom too. Willows and other early trees are leafing out, oaks are flowering, but the pecan trees are still asleep. Irises are up about 4 to 6". Lots of perennial flowers have come up.

The post oak trees are dropping their brown leaves so they are about to start making new leaves.

And, due to the lack of recent rain and the fact that we haven't recovered from two years of drought...the cracks in the ground that started to close up with the winter rains are now opening up wider again! I guess I'll water the yard around the house today, because I don't want those cracks in the ground to get any larger, if I can help it. We sure need rain, but have only a 20 to 30 per cent chance this weekend, so I am not very hopeful.

Dawn

Oh, I am just sick about Sundance and Sabrina - they could really sing, and probably would have made it much further in the competition and deserved to be in the final 12. I was happy to see Antonella go - she surely knows that she was up against some fierce competition. But, Sanjaya cannot sing at all, and neither can Hayley.

I'm a big Melinda and Lakisha fan! None of the boys really impressed me this year. I think it's a girl's competition this season.

'Ice Ballet' milkweed is a cultivar of A. incarnata, aka swamp milkweed - needing lots of water. A. tuberosa, on the other hand, likes it much, much drier. It just depends on what species you're growing. I always usually cast about some seeds of A. curassavica (not native and an annual here) because the Monarchs REALLY like it the best of all milkweeds. It is very showy, too, and there are some nice cultivars as well.

Best get going, and get outside!

Susan

Susan, I had moths on my windows this evening before I shut the blinds. Spring will be here before you know it. Thank you gardening angels.

I just had to share with you because moths mean the butterflies can not be far behind, right?

Stephanie

Hi,

Is Sweetbay Magnolia (Magnolia virginiana var. virginiana) self-fertile? Does anyone have just one specimen growing in a region where there are none nearby and yet still get fruit?

Thanks,
Steven

Sweetbay is indeed monoecious, meaning self-fertile. I understand they do sucker as well. This is my second year for it - I grow it for the Tiger Swallowtail larva.

While it prefers wet feet, it also tolerates dry soil once established.

Susan