Lennie, welcome to the forum. You are going to have tought time growing adenium in Michigan. I still have 3 brothers live there. I am from MI, but now in TX I know your winter....there for 13 years .. If I am you, I get a nice size and enjoy the bloom.... Marie

Stan, I guess it all depends on the specific genus, because these guys have come a long way in a year. The smaller ones were in a com-pot and so really haven't had room to grow. I just pulled them apart this week. the larger ones were singled out late in the fall (those on the right). Sharon, I'm putting this on you to remind me of all I was going to collect for you..... LOL Howard

Melissa, that is a great project for end of the winter. I had some plastic labels stuck in the tipped pots which were found loose on the mulch. however, I did manage to get them back to the right place. My real chore is relettering all the PERMANENT INK that faded from intense sun and rain. Quick, before all trace of the name is gone. Do you etch or mark with ink on your metal labels?

Matt, What you said about spring is so true because once we finally have nice spring weather, there is just so much to be done and so much of it needs to be done 'now'. When I get all the beds planted and mulched and all just the way I want them, I just go and build a new bed, so there's never any time to just sit. It's my own fault I'm so tired all the time in spring! Jay, We went from a frosty low of 31 degrees yesterday morning to an afternoon high of 73 and then the wildfires starting breaking out, though not in our fire district--but out in western and northwestern Love County which is always a bit drier and hot than the rest of the county. Today is expected to be about 80 or so and with a higher fire risk. I hope we luck out and don't have any fires here today because I have a full to-do for Tim to complete, although he'd probably rather be out fighting a fire. I am not convinced we've seen our last cold front. Even this far south we have had very cold weather into the first week in May some years, but I'll probably go ahead and plant as much as I can cover up and then cross my fingers and hope a big cold spell doesn't come crashing down on us in mid-April. We usually have a pretty serious cold front around Easter, but it seems like we won't this year, and that's a nice change. Adellabedella, Your comment about the kids and the heat made me chuckle because I felt 'hot' while working in the yard yesterday, and it was only 73. DH and I even discussed how odd it was for 73 to feel hot when a month from now 73 will feel cool. We're expected 80 today so I guess we'll get to complain about the heat some more. We did fill up the dogs' wading pool yesterday and one of them jumped right into it while it was still filling up...like she just couldn't wait another second. Diane, I started seeds a couple of days after the Super Bowl, so my plants are about 6 or 7 weeks old, depending on how long it took them to sprout. I guess they're ready to go into the ground if I'm brave enough to put them there. Yesterday's full sun all day long was pretty hard on them. I don't think they've had a full day of sun once this year because of the perpetual clouds and rain, so they didn't know sunlight could last more than 2 or 3 or 4 hours. They looked kind of tired by sunset last night. It wasn't very windy here until late in the day and that helped because lately the wind has beaten up on them despite my efforts to block it or to put them in sheltered areas. With all you've been through this spring (and I hope Steve's recovery is progressing well), I'm surprised you've managed to start seeds at all. Today the peppers go from the light shelf upstairs to the screened-in back porch for the first time. I think our nights are supposed to stay warm enough here that I can leave them out at night which is what I've been waiting for, because once I carry them downstairs and outside, I don't want to have to carry them inside and up those stairs again. They won't go into the ground for a while yet because our soil temps are still in the 50s, but at least I can start hardening them off. Now I need to get busy planting some flower seeds and stuff, and maybe next week I can plant beans and corn. I hope to get the first 60 tomato plants in the ground this week if the weather cooperates and if the fire pagers don't go off. The fire weather here in our part of the state is ramping up this week and I've been dreading it. I was hoping for a quiet fire season and we've had one so far, but it may not last. We spent the day yesterday building raised beds in our granddaughter's soon-to-be Peter Rabbit garden.modeled after Farmer MacGregor's garden. Hopefully by the time she comes to visit next week we'll have it ready to plant. The last time she was here, she said "Don't plant without me" and so I haven't. lol Getting the raised beds built took longer than I expected and we still have to build the picket fence, paint it and put it up. Her garden is going to be so much cuter than mine, but we are being very careful to do everything we can to make it low maintenance since she is only here occasionally. I was in a nursery yesterday and showed remarkable restraint. I only bought one plant. Aren't you proud of me? That doesn't mean I didn't want a lot more, but I didn't buy them. One of the best parts of yesterday was that while we were working, the purple martins were flying overhead in endless loops and singing and carrying on. It's so nice to have them back 'home' again. Dawn