...like opening the door to the secret garden for the first time :). Love to see a comparison picture later on. Although we didn't have snow, at least so far this winter, my garden is in a similar state as I usually don't do much cleanup until the spring, although snowdrops, crocus and hellebore are blooming and mini daffs in bud my garden is still too wet to work in. Don't you just love it when these little crocus burst through, it means spring is not far away.

Annette

It took until the Monday after Christmas for us to get any appreciable snow (9 inches), much less snow with staying power. That snow is still here and will be for a while with -5F expected tonight.

Looks like I'll be fooling around inside tomorrow.

tj

Yay - crocus! The harbingers of spring for me. Mine won't be up for about another month...but it will be here soon!

Patiently waiting to get out there! Winter is truly here now with single digit temps brrr! My hellebores have been so confused lol.

Sure hoping that groundhog is accurate this year :)

We've never seen a February like this one! It was 12C (54F) here and we were out cutting back the clematises on the north alley fence. I have NEVER been working in the garden this early! Normal high/low temperatures for this date are 0C/-9C (32F/16F). A week ago we were having warm temperatures alternating with days of -20C to -30C windchills. Tomorrow is supposed to be a bit cooler and then the highs for the rest of next week are supposed to hover around 0C. I was happy to see lots of green wood in the stems we were cutting off since I've been worried about how well things are surviving these yo-yo temperatures....

I was happy to see lots of green wood in the stems we were cutting off

'Woody', as is usually the case most of my clems have been trimmed off at the base by rabbits.

This morning I noticed new spring growth from some of our Phlox P! This is ridiculously early.

We broke record temp yesterday - it was in the 60s, and it was a spectacular sunny day. I had all the windows in the house open, was a little chilly from the breeze but the house is nice and fresh now. Anyway, I took a quick peek to see if the crocus have started breaking through yet, and I only saw a few blades of foliage just beginning to poke through, and this is in a location with a southern exposure. Normally the crocus start waking up in early March and bloom the last week or so of March for me, so that seems to be relatively on schedule. I didn't check anything else other than the tree peonies, and the buds have not swollen and reddened yet. I'll have to glance at the Japanese maples later today. It's supposed to cool off into the 30s this week, that will slow things down a bit, which is a good thing.

I'm more concerned with the mason bees that are in the garage than the plants. The garage is about 10 degrees warmer than outside (there's a temp gauge in there), and I'd hate for them to break dormancy yet, there is nothing blooming. I don't want to put them outside where it is cooler because the warm of the sun may wake them up. I'll just have to keep an eye on them and if they emerge feed them with some honey and water; there are directions for this on Crown Bees website, which was helpful info.

Given that we cut back the clems anyways I don't really care that the bunnies do it earlier ;).

Yes, I always wondered whether the rabbits would just do ones pruning for you or do they really kill the clematis?

Nope, the clems seem no worse for wear with those rabbit "kisses".

Talk about a sharp contrast. My zone 5 is clearly different than yours woody and rouge.

Yikes! I read that up your way got lots of snow! My fear now is that winter is going to make a belated appearance in March or early April and dump a winter's worth of snow and cold on us just as everything starts greening up....

Yikes is right! I am used to lots of snow so I can easily accept this, however we both run that risk of growth (mine later than yours) and then snow and or freeze again. I whined last year because I got severe frost in late May after most plants had leafed out. The Hostas were affected the most. In over 30 years that was a first.

Two years prior I had all the flowers of Actinidia kolomitka destroyed by frost. Most other plants were still dormant thankfully. Here's hoping neither of us have those conditions this year.

That is exactly what happened a few years ago. In Michigan, all the apple trees had bloomed, and then we got a deep freeze. We lost more than half the apple crop that year. I'm sure other agricultural businesses had similar losses.

Martha