Oh wow!!!! I envy you!!! :)

We're getting warm weather here in zone 3 - about +15 C and + 59 F. But it won't last. So I want really badly to take my roses out of the garage and to go look at my perennials. But the weather will drop - it's way too early.

Darn.

Show pictures so I can live vicariously through you!!!

Carol

Looks like summer is starting here. It is supposed to get up to 90 this weekend. UGH! Way too early.

My Okame cherry trees are finally blooming, usually they do this in February. The birds are much more active. I do see robins. I have a lot of potted roses that I have to plant. The last cold spell, I put them in the garage and basement and left them there because I was tired of hauling them in and out. Some of them had put on some new growth while inside, but it was pale green (for lack of sunlight). Just two days outside when the sun FINALLY came out and they just burst we new red growth. I swear they put on 2 inches of growth in a day. Hopefully I will get to do some planting this weekend. I have 9 bare roots from Palantine coming today.

Even plants get spring fever! lol They try to catch up for lost time.

Hi Meredith, spring is just around the corner for us! It's warmed up here quite a bit & the snow is gone. It's still dropping into the 30s and 40s at night though. I have some allium showing up but no daffodils yet.

I can't wait to start pruning my roses. I had a lot of cane damage - lack of snow and I did not protect my roses this year, but I can see green at the base of them so I am happy that they should be recovering!

Happy spring everyone!

Pulled a few actively growing weeds. Trimmed off a broken rose cane. Found a bore hole so cut below. Cut the cane in half and found some eggs that I squished. Happy I checked.

Lady bugs out yesterday on last years perennial foliage munching on someone. It's finally beginning. Yeah!

Aslo found preying mantis eggs I hadn't noticed on rose bushes. Do these hatch before pruning time?

We've had a really early spring, broke lots of temperature records and I've been out gardening for a month. It was even pretty dry for a change, it's usually all the rain that keeps me indoors not the temp but we didn't even get snow this winter and February was mostly sunny. I think I'm going to need more rain barrels this year, especially with all the new roses I've planted. I'm on a well so no snow could mean less water for sure, not used to that.

<sigh> Down here we are already experiencing summer like weather. So much for our temperate weather.

Spring-like

weather here in the San Francisco Bay Area too. My new-to-me Koko-loco in terracotta pot just starting to leaf out. Want to use it to embellish my new garden shed, which is close to being completed. Climbing Blue Girl on fence behind shed should help soften look also. Toying with idea of buying a climbing miniature yellow rose for another hanging planter--will look for one with fragrance. Hope you enjoy my photo.

Your shed is so cute, James!

The spring like temps have melted a lot of our snow already. It was fun watching the curbs appear and then the edges of the driveway and now nearly all of it has melted away except for the big piles. I walked around the beds and found a few things just starting to poke out of the ground.

Now if it would just stay this way! But I know winter isn't quite done with us just yet...

Our 'spring' looks to have finally arrived! We're gettingamaryllis sending up their blooms, and the crepe myrtles getting their shoots on. Also, the roses are blooming. :D

Our snow finally melted, just the last of it today, and I noticed the snowdrops are blooming! That's always our absolute first sign of spring, and I notice like Sharon that my bulbs are starting to pop out of the ground. Not only that, but the birds are back at the feeders in droves, including a drop-dead gorgeous cardinal that was almost neon orange in his intensity of color. Too soon to seriously prune yet, but it's time to spread out the leaf mulch and await coming attractions!

Cynthia

It's been nice around here for a little while. My roses are putting out new growth. I'll be cleaning up the last bed and pruning this weekend. It's been good getting my hands in the dirt.

I have crocus, muscari, Daffodil, hyacinth and tulips blooming! Yay!!! Along with two shrubs.

Excuse me if the picture is oriented strangely, but Spring is in swing here.

Jay

Love these pictures - especially the cute shed!!

Carol

We never really got much of a winter this time around. Not much rain either. Altho we just had a light sprinkling a couple days ago. Didn't amount to much. Most of my roses never totally went dormant. Just slowed down for a few months. They're popping out beautiful new growth and buds are swelling. The camellias have been blooming and the daphne is all finished (love that smell!). They usually come out around now anyway. But I see lilies popping up early, and even a few irises are getting buds already. We desperately need rain. But what I like about not having much, is how little disease there is right now on the roses. Usually by now the powdery mildew and black spot would be showing up. I'm really excited about spring, but I'm also worried about not having a true winter. Without the normal freezes, the insects are going to be rampant this summer.

I think this camellia is called DEBUTANTE?

ArbutusOmnedo - mind if I ask what rose you have there?

Yes! I have my first bloom in the bed outside my shop! A mini iris.

Daffs, tulips, and various others greenery is starting here, too. My home gardens are always about 3 weeks behind this south facing, up against a building, brick planter bed, but I have crocus and daffs popping up at home too!

I was so excited to get out and clean this bed up yesterday; fingers in the dirt is therapeutic!

I have short daff leaves. No sign of crocus, but I hear that there are snowdrops (the flower) nearby. The forsythia in the neighbor's yard is budding.

Seriously beautiful pictures you guys are giving me a case of plant withdrawal here.

That is Jump for Joy, the newer Weeks release. It settled in very nicely by about 3/4ths of the way through its first year -last year- and looks just great now! Not a lot of fragrance, but I really like the color and frequency of the blooms. I'm not sure how it is regarding black spot, but I imagine some gardeners in lower zones picked it up last year as well.

Jay

There's no sign of spring here. We've skipped that season and jumped into summer with 90 degrees predicted for the next three days.

Trees is my front yard.

NOID TB Iris. This started blooming mid Jan and is still going. There are a few more popping up. Autumn Tryst and Immortality have finished.

Bloom of Grandmother's Hat. I took this yesterday after getting several inches of rain last week. I'm surprised it held up!

Freesia is out there blooming, and glads are coming up too.

We still have snow on the ground and freezing temps at night... Usually I'll start seeing signs of life around the end of March or after... (For roses)

Fantastic pics everyone!

James_Shaw I love your garden shed. What a work of art! It looks almost like something you might find at a nice beach that you could flip up that window and sell soda and fish tacos from. Yum :D

Where did you find your climbing Blue Girl Rose? I have been searching high and low for a climbing version of Blue Girl but no luck at all :( I saw another photo you had on this forum somewhere of it in full bloom and it was just gorgeous!

Most all of the snow is gone now except for the BIG piles. I gently pulled some leaves back off the roses in a few spots to peak. There is green down n there! Yippee! It will be weeks yet of course before I can take any protection off but heck I'm thrilled anyway, lol!

Beth, I have those same petunias and they self seed all over the place for me. I haven't bought petunias in years. I just dig up the little seedlings when they come up and put them where I want them!

I am enjoying seeing all these California spring blooms! Brittie, I love your pretty pink iris!

Blizzard warning for here tonight, so no, sigh, sign of spring yet.

Valerie

Signs of spring? Well, let me see. I have no flowers yet, but the robins are out around the bird feeder. I see some bulbs coming up. There are already all kinds of bugs flying around. I see shrubs waking up with the idea of leafing out. I also see some that may not have any idea of leafing out. We also need rain. We are having temperatures in the 70s, but it is supposed to get cold again down to around freezing. For those of us who live in this part of the country, you know spring is coming when they have the state-wide tornado drills, and the National Weather Service has their severe weather spotting training courses. I went again this year along with about 350 other attendees for our county.

I love all the pictures, and that shed is a work of art, yes!

It looks like my poor Bow Bells bit the dust, and she was such a favorite :( :( Her really strange, long graft was literally hollow from an old borer problem, so I knew it was only a matter of time. I took cuttings, but they didn't look so good themselves. Otherwise, the roses are budding or leafing out nicely! Woo-hoo :D I'm still not finished pruning, but I'm having such fun out in the sun and dirt, getting scratched up :D

It's nice and warm here. Like 75 today! I'm so sorry for y'all who are so much hotter than spring. I hope we don't heat up too much too quickly either. Spring is short here some years, but you never know this early.

I pruned my grape vines in the snow last weekend. Snow is melting now, but it's still pretty chilly in the wind, still have to wear short shearing jackets to go out.

99% of our snow is gone! woooooooo

We are suppose to get 1"-3" of snow Friday but it should melt fairly quickly...

My garden has some color, but this week, the stars of the show, my roses have started to open. I took these today, I hope you don't mind my sharing some. :)

Wendy's Wish

Pope John Paul II

Dream come true

Cabana

Geranium Rozanne

Lemon blossoms

Vavoom

Belinda's Dream

Thank you!

rosydreams.....I would say you have a lot of colour.... my Geranium Rozannes have barely poked their heads above the soil as yet... and certainly much too early for roses.... but we have Camellias and Daffodils...

...your photos are stunning, as they all are on this thread I find....

Fantastic pics rosydreams!

We got 6 inches of snow this past Friday but luckily it melted all today...

First Spring blooms in my garden were seen today -- two Iris reticulata 'Pixie' of the hundred I planted last Autumn. I see signs of the others coming up -- a hundred each of Crocus tommasinianus 'Lilac Beauty', Chionodoxa 'Alba', and Anemone blanda 'Blue Shades' were naturalized with the Iris, planted over a layer of a hundred Narcissus 'Fragrant Mix' in the main rose beds, all from Van Engelen. There's also some Hyacinthoides non-scripta planted with the Gallicas, and Ipheion 'Starry Nights Mix' planted in the full-sun border that are poking through. So signs of life, but thus far only those two Iris blooms.

Oh, and the roses all have swelling buds. "Bermuda Spice" actually kept quite a few green leaves -- being as it was covered in snow for much of the cold part of Winter. But I think they'll be pushed off by new leaves in just a few weeks.

:-)

~Christopher