Hmmmmm. I'm REALLY confused now. I have marginal luck with Ranunculas here in SF. Most of the 'claws' that I plant never come up or if they do, never bloom. But I persist every year planting more because I LOVE the shape and colors. I always assumed they were a SPRING bloomer. But I just bought a package from HD and on it, it says ranunculas bloom in LATE SUMMER and Fall!! So I thought maybe that is why I rarely get any to bloom - I'm expecting them in Spring but they bloom in late summer? Now, you note they are pushing up in Feb and you are only 50 miles north of me? None of the ones I planted last year are coming up yet, despite the lack of winter. I'm confused. So when DO they bloom? (My neighbor had a pod of red beauties last year and they were blooming in early summer!)

I can help with that. I used pure sand to cover my washed out limestone soil when we moved in in 1992. After many years of being on an organic program my sand has enough dark matter in it to trick you into thinking it is dark soil. I know the sand is still pure white because I tested it during a remodeling job a couple years ago. The contractor dug up an old walk way through the back yard and I was surprised to see the very dark brown color of the soil under the St Augustine. I scooped some up and dropped it into a glass of water. The white sand dropped to the bottom of the glass immediately. Most of the brown stuff floated and there was some brown discoloration of the water. I used compost once on this yard in the late 90s. The sand came to me originally as a 50:50 mix with "compost" which was extremely hot at the time. It was basically sand and horse manure. Since 2002 I've used corn meal, alfalfa pellets, and corn gluten meal. That's all. The soil looks pretty rich but it really is only sand and the composted remains of roots, leaves, grass clippings, and whatever I've applied. Does that help?

Slumgullion -- Everything here is a little delayed. When we should have been getting rain, we had temps in the 90's, and East wind, drying everything out. Quite a few roses lost all or most of their foliage. Never mind removing old foliage . . . Old, new, in-between . . . They all went. So, the poor roses needed to start over, late.

Apparently, under those cool, damp conditions, the yellow usually hidden within the flower, at the base of each petal, expands to manifest over the whole petal. When growing it, I had seen "yellow-ish" flowers on Jesse's strong lookalike, "Westside Road Cream Tea", but not to that extent. On the other hand, I'm more inland, don't get that kind of prolonged coolness.