bare-root season in full swing...and pruning. I do all the fruit bushes over winter (not prunus obvs) and the apple cordons. However, we are following on with the US weather service tradition of storm naming - we have already had Abigail, Barney and a 'C' I have forgotten, this year, and are now up to D...and Desmond is proving to be a heartbreaker for our friends in the north - flooding, rampant, horrible....and my allotment is a chaos of toppled timber supports and fencing. Thankfully, most of my fellow allotmenteers are fairweather gardeners so I have been following in their footsteps and ignoring the mess. Of course, if it was one of my fellow plot owners whose allotment was such a catastrophe, I would be judging them very harshly indeed...but feel in a forgiving mood for my own failings...and have been atoning by sowing seed.

hazel and apple trees to plant and got at least 2 dozen tree seedlings in last week which have been growing from seed. Like packing the offspring off into the wide-world, both a relief and anxiety...but in general, as soon as a plant leaves my not so tender care, they are on their own - quite literally, out of sight, out of mind...until they bloom (or not). As there is no irrigation in the wood, autumn is my only planting season...so it has been a rush to get everything in the ground - leading to some hasty decisions and zero preparation. Still, like husbands, treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen.

Totally ignoring Christmas- will be a desperate last minute panic (as it is every year).

Doesn't the snow fall off your shoulders when you bend to plant?

Shoulders aren't much of an issue.....toes and sopping gloves....impossible for fingers to be dexterous and warm at the same time.

Dug my geraniums for storage, they're drying in a wheelbarrow right now, I still need to throw them in paper bags; it's still too warm to put them in the crawl space yet, though. Haven't really done anything other than that except tagged a few plants in the beds that I might take with me if I move next year (in case they're not up yet and I need to remember where to dig). Should be spreading the leaves DH bagged for me, which is a "should be" every fall yet every year ends up being done in the spring instead...

Campanula, Your to-do list, in addition to what you've already accomplished in the last few years, leads me to wonder if you look like this woman. This is Tracy, described here as part garden designer and part tri-athlete. She is also the author of two excellent gardening books I've recommended here. Despite a valiant effort I could not upload her photo directly but Here's a link: note felcos in her left pocket

http://www.tracylive.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/dsc_0093.jpg

If someone else can upload from the site, feel free.

There's another photo that highlights her abs and triceps better, but I couldn't get a link at all for it.

Call me awestruck by your determination and energy.

Marie

Ha ha -...well I do ride a bike...at about 5miles per hour. I have that classic peasant shape - power legs, short torso, steel backbone, round shoulders, which evolved over a few thousand years to survive the Siberian steppes...so I can plod on all day....slowly. This time of year is often mild in England so we can garden right up to Christmas...and as soon as the solstice passes, it's uphill all the way so since being a gardener, winter no longer horrifies me (although I am buggered if I could manage a zone 2,3,4,5.

Hey, looking at your zone reminds me, I am theoretically almost a Boston native. My (Irish) mother was sent over there to stay with rellies but arrived back home to Liverpool, somewhat chastened and 7 months up the duff with me. My (ahem) dad was from Argentinia, studying, but turns out he already had wife and child in Buenos Aires!

We got around 76 today and it will be warmer tomorrow and all week. Gardening ramps up here when Fall starts. I cut down about 30 small Mountain ashe Junipers today and protected a lot of baby volunteer madrone and red oak trees from deer. I did 5 tankful of gas in the chainsaw. I wouldn't call it gardening per say. More reductive woodland restoration. I got in two agaves this morning to start out the day.. I have a bunch of seedling grasses and rooted cuttings to plant. Some native acacia trees too. My winter vegetable garden is still not in. Late on that one. I need a trailer load of compost and some bulk dirt. My husband finally fixed the lights so I can get it registered tomorrow. We still have not had a frost yet at my house. I think they had one a mile away though. I check the weather everyday. It changes so quick.

My mother attributed our family's hobbit like feet to the early way grapes were processed into wine: stomping.

LOL, I am missing a bone in each of my toes. My toes are weirdly small. I attribute it to being the next stage in the evolution of humanity. My sister says that I Iack humility.

I've been procrastinating : /

sherry

Today I pruned clematis and cut back grasses which were squashed by heavy snow last week.

The last 30 bulbs got planted today! I am so finished with bulbs.

Marie, I didn't do any fall bulbs this year but each time I go to Ocean State Job Lot and see them on sale I think about popping a few hundred in the cart, but I have been soooooo lazy this fall season I always walk away! Today we worked on all the cutleaf Japanese maples. With that first couple days of cold the leaves shriveled up on the branches. Didn't change color. Didn't fall. Just stuck on. Not good going into the winter if there's heavy snow load, so we shedded the leaves manually. Oh what fun it is.......LOL!

The lawn definitely does not realize it is mid-December. It is gorgeous, emerald green. Gazanias are still blooming on the front porch and alyssum on the cottage garden pathways are still blooming. I am so glad I have lots of hellebore and epimedium maintaining a lot of green in the beds.

We are going to get spoiled with this weather!

I looked at the box of bulbs which still need planting and then went outside and turned a bit of the compost pile. I'm also feeling remarkably lazy. People talk about the joy of hard labor in the garden, I'd rather sit with a drink.

I'm with the lazy and procrastinating group! Regardless of the unusually warm temperatures, the short days have put me into winter hibernation mode :-) The forecast is for some cooler temperatures in a week or so. It's been 10C warmer than normal here - and looking like some lawns may need mowing again before Christmas!

t2d: that reminds me of the summer I plucked the dying petals off my echinaceas so the pretty orange cone would show up better. They did look better,

but I don't think I ever undertook that particular exercise again.

Marie

As Campanula has said, a long mild Autumn is fairly standard for us over here so we don't have the sense of urgency to do 'Clean up' in the garden. In fact it was a term I'd never heard until I began frequenting GW. I just potter about when the mood takes me knowing that another suitable weather window will always come along if I don't do whatever it is now. Likewise in Spring, the sowing and planting window is weeks and weeks long so again procrastination isn't fatal.

This year has, however, been even milder than usual. There are daffodil flower buds alongside rose buds in the garden at the moment.

To me, "clean up", in the context of gardening, sounds like a hold over from the (British) Victorian more formal horticultural enthusiasm for "garden hygiene".

I had a bag of Azomite "Trace Elements" and so while walking out and about I hand sowed the rock dust around the base of each perennial.

Just had to put some slug pellets around the (literally) blooming daffodils. 59f here this afternoon.

Really,? Daffodils? I swear I saw a forthysia blooming on a hillside the other day. I couldn't get there to look closely, but that's what it had to be.

I keep forgetting to put out the plantsryd to deter the deer. I suppose they have other browse available but my hicksii junipers are a standing invitation for brunch. Frankly it smells foul and I looked like an ax murderer covered in blood after I last used it. But it worked so I shouldn't be such a wuss.

Yes, Marie. Daffodils. December Daffodils

Same here. IN CAMBRIDGE!!

"....a host of December daffodils." still scans.

I have forsythia blooming, is that normal? I only moved into my new home in August so I'm not familiar with forsythia.

And perhaps you are not from a cold climate? No, it is not normal! Forsythia blooms in the spring. It must be the most widely (over) planted spring blooming shrub in the northeast and mid west US. Someone reading here knows if it will re-bloom this spring, but I don't.

Welcome! Perhaps you'd like to post separately and tell us about yourself and your gardening interests.

Marie

Yes, it should rebloom if winter returns to any resemblance of normal. I have a love/hate relationship with Forsthia. But this year, drought has kept it in check..., usually, can't keep up with the summer pruning in a (normally) WET summer. I do appreciate the normal blooming period though (here in March). One shrub is quite enough though. Right now, the Camellias are blooming their heads off. I did lime the lawn a week ago..., still green green and may be needing a mowing soon (which is absurd in late December in NJ). But excuse me..., isn't winter the excuse for NOT having to do yard work! Oh course, this excuse may soon be replaced with...., "it's too hot to be working outside". (Going to 73 F on Christmas Eve now.)

Given the forecast this thread could go on and on. Way north of you, subtropix, in the Boston area, the Xmas eve temp may be hitting 68. My brain is having a hard time reconciling last year with this year....is this an alternate universe? However, my body and spirits are relieved not to be coping with snow and freezing temperatures.

Today I spread the deer repellent.

I still haven't done the "real" Christmas pots, but got a couple of beautiful white hellebores in them. (If you can believe it, Trader Joe purchases) No reason to take them out when it is still this warm. The day before yesterday it was in the 40's and they looked wilted. Today they are perky and blooming. I have two bundles of curly flame willow to add. I hope I get to it some time.

I think that I will have alot of weeding to do. With this mild weather, the weeds have taken over my yeard!

On the plus side, due to the warm weather, here is some blooming activity today, the day after Christmas 2015.

True, down side is..., lots and lots of WEEDING. Maybe tomorrow..., LOL!

Honestly, we need the temps to DROP. If this continues, Spring will be springing, and

inevitable cold be be an ISSUE. I am a "zone-pusher", so ironically, most of my planting are safer because they are not triggered into growth until conditions get truly tropical. On the other hand, I see Spring budding on my cold hardier plants..., which could be source of concern.

Happy New Year!!

Mizzteek Z6 MA, the forsythia has set all its bloom buds for next year already, so the particular buds that are blooming now won't bloom again next spring. However, there are probably branches that aren't blooming now that will have flowers in the spring. Once the hours of chilling needed for a plant have been experienced, some plants will bloom all or partly in a warm fall like this, even those that usually bloom in spring.

We (visiting family and I) have been spending a lot of time out-of-doors walking through the woods and fields in the area when it hasn't been actually raining. Previous Christmas visits have involved visiting some of the same places on snowshoes or skis, so this has been unique having temperatures in the 50's for several days. We cut our tree (balsam fir) from the woods across the road early last week, so it's a bit Charlie Brown, but it holds ornaments just fine. We are expecting some form of frozen precipitation on Tuesday, so I have been enjoying this final hurrah of fall warmth! I will want to go out to the garden and stomp down all the vole tunnels prior to the cold temperatures in the hopes that they will settle in for the winter elsewhere!