Yep life has been crazy for this 62 year old woman with 7 grandkids. I got remarried last September, we're totally remodeling a large abandoned house inside and out, I'm going to school 3/4 time, and working 1/2 time. We went camping in SW Minnesota last month and are hoping to go sea kayaking at the Apostle Islands in August. We're very broke but happy. HOWEVER, our 2 1/2 car garage is still full of junk for garden projects to do in our spare time???? I've been absent from this site for a long time so it's very nice someone remembered me!

Looks like spring is starting in the South-Central part of the country, hopefully spreading eastward and northward! It's hard to asseess overall damage yet here. Nothing is really waking up, except Acer saccharinum and rubrum, and witchhazel. Even the forsythias and daffodils are still mostly not yet blooming. I even have some Dutch crocuses (in mostly shade until the sun angle is a bit higher) not blooming yet. The Cedrus deodaras around here are a bit yellowish at the tips but appear alive. Some other conifers also have some slight yellowing or browning. Especially Pinus and Cryptomeria. A little Acer palmatum I have does appear to have a bit of tip dieback, but it had a very late flush last summer (Aug/Sept) that didn't even defoliate until they were frozen off, so that was to be expected. Pyrus calleryana does show bud swell, and appears to have not been damaged from our several deep freezes this month. My wife's rosemary, however, is toast.

Yes. The yellow iris - which was supposed to be blue and descended from the blue flags of Mary Gardiner - is blooming right now. It is bearded. The bud starts out blue tipped then opens to yellow standards and blue striped yellow falls. Within a day or two the blue stripes turned brown and the yellow standards were not really clear yellow any more. We have had heat and rain so that may account for the dulling of the colors. The plant is robust and spreads rapidly. The flowers are 30"to 36" tall and smaller than those of today's. Meanwhile we have been in touch with Dr. Favretti and he says that we obviously have the wrong iris as his ARE blue. He has recently divided his, discarding the extras but has offered us another try after his present clump spreads enough for another divide.I expect to get in touch with him again to see if he knows the botanical name of the Gardiner Island iris and if he could send us a picture. We also tried to make contact with "the President's House" at Yale but got no response, and we have e-mailed the museum at Worden in Holland asking for information about corespondence of Mary Gardiner. Also no answer to date. So the hunt goes on. At least we now know that the yellow iris we have been cherishing as blue flag Gardiner Island is the wrong one and we may discard it. Gnomlet aka Marianne

Hi neighbor! We are from Minnesota, and do a lot of camping. One place you may want to consider is the Boundary Waters Canoe Area... Beautiful! It's up in the northernmost part of MN. We go to a lot of state campgrounds... some of our favorites are St. Croix State Park, Interstate Park (I prefer the Wisconsin side), and Lake Itasca. Try the MN DNR site for good descriptions of each park; you can even reserve camping on the site. We like the walk-in or backpack sites- more privacy, and usually they really in the middle of nature. In Wisconsin, we like Big Bay State Park (Apostle Islands- in Lake Superior.) You take a ferry from Bayfield, WI out to the island (Madeline). Amnicon Falls Park is also a winner. Really... there are so many, I can't name them all. Northern MN or WI are the best locations- you really can't lose there. Have fun!