Flowers! Five blossoms is a whole lot better than none.

Nothing blooming here; just moderate snow and winds. Temperatures are hovering around freezing so some of the precipitation will probably be sleet/rain. Good because that means less snow to shovel, bad because it means more slippery icy surfaces and heavy gloppy snow on branches.

Got a lot of birds stuffing their faces before the snow gets too deep. Trying to resist the urge to stuff my own face since I have all that leftover holiday food in the refrigerator. Waiting for blizzards is hungry work.

Hope all goes well for blizzard-afflicted GWers.

Claire

Wow, how exciting! Are they fragrant? The only flowers blooming around here are inside. :) Be sure to get some pics before they're covered in snow!

The closest thing to flowers here are the 2 pots of agapanthus with newborn shoots I just took out of the dark (and are inside the window), to start growing up for May blooms. They are looking out on a whole lot of snow, with more to come. Oh well, good white insulation for the perennial beds. Except with these winds it's snowing horizontally - eventual dunes.

Claire, I agree: waiting for the snow to stop involves a lot of eating. It's a dirty job, but someone has to do it...

Carol

Winter Jasmine (Jasminum nudiflorum)doesn't have any fragrance but I like it because the stems are evergreen, even though the tiny leaves fall off in autumn. I also like that it always tries to open a few flowers throughout late fall and winter, whenever the temps are above freezing for a couple of days. It does put on a bigger show usually in April, when it's covered in hundreds of blooms. It's also totally hardy here and easy to grow and propagate. I do have a Jasmine (Jasminum officinale) that does have a great fragrance and white blossoms usually around May.

As for eating during a blizzard, I totally agree. With nowhere to go yesterday, I made lasagna, my own fresh pasta and all. It was worth the wait and there's plenty leftover too.

Bill, nice to hear your Jasmine is still blooming. Pretty impressive! Your Opuntia is sitting under about 18 inches of snow right now. [g] I've decided I'm going to look for that Camillia 'April Kiss' and 'Frostproof' gardenia in the spring.

We made home made pasta for the first time on Christmas Eve. It was delicious! We're still eating leftover ravioli. It was really fun too. I am planning to try it again. Maybe with different recipes.

The wind is really gusting out there right now. I hope it isn't covering up the driveway and walkways that we just shoveled. :-)

Hi Ann,

The Jasmine isn't really "still blooming" as much as "starting extremely early". Normal full bloom time is April, but the buds are formed during the previous growing season the same as rhododendrons etc. So sometimes, a few of the buds will swell and bloom anytime from mid-December on, if there are some mild days. I've had a couple of dozen blooms on New Years Day one year, and almost always a few in the longer days of February, and definitely quite a few in March.

Homemade pasta is really easy, cooks so quickly, tastes great, and is quite inexpensive. Nothing to complain about there!

I'm sure the Opuntia will be fine! They just start to look ratty when they shrivel, but that's their survival plan.

I wish you all the best for 2011!
Bill

So the Jasmine is like the Rhododendrons I saw with a few blooms open in late November, ok. Sounds like a nice little extra to get a few blooms every month. Very cheerful, I'm sure.

Thank you, best wishes for a great 2011 at your house too! :-)