So far, no 'Monaco' bulbs here. One 'Jewel of the Night' bulb flowered beautifully like Maria's and Tsucath's. The color of this little jewel is truly noteworthy, but it is impossible to capture the true color with my antiquated 2004 PowerShot camera. Another bulb labeled 'Jewel of the Night' produced yellow flowers. The first scape and its flowers were severely damaged. They were not worth photographing. Another scape is coming. The last two bulbs labeled 'Jewel of the Night' bulbs are starting to produce scapes, but the bulbs are noticeably larger.

I'm new to the whole wintersowing thingie, so I'm just trolling around looking to see what people are saying about setting containers out in this cold. Looks like it will be OK? I'd started 14 containers back last month, but, of course they're under snow and I won't have a clue as to how successful they may be for quite a while yet. However, I just received some dynamite seeds in the mail from a GW friend - many of which need cold treatment. My normal method in the past would have been to stick them in the fridge for a month or so and then sow under lights, but now I'm thinking maybe I should wintersow these as well. Things like different kinds of asclepias, penstemons, and larkspur. No rain in our forecast, prairiemoon, just more snow and maybe some more minus temps, though hopefully we're past the minus 20's now. Whew! Any words of wisdom to add, anyone? - Alex

I still have 5 tomatoes from the garden (keep sake). I picked them completely green, 2 weeks ago and they have ripened nicely on the counter. At least I have learned a valuable lesson from this : PICKING AT COLOR BREAK IS GUARANTEED THAT THEY WILL RIPEN PERFECTLY IN LESS THAN ONE WEEK, where 100% green ones ripen. Last summer I lost quite a bit of nice big Brandy Boys to the Tree Rats. Definitely they attacked when they saw red color. OK. Now that there is nothing to do, gardening wise, I have been working on my plans for 2016. I've got better than 90% of the seeds that I want. Cutting / slashing back by 50%, compared to 2015, both in variety and number of plants. Too much work takes the fun out of gardening for me. New varieties always bring excitement. So this year I will grow about 6 of them. INDIAN STRIPE, OLD GERMAN, GREEN COPIA, BLACK SEAMAN, SAKHARNYI ZHELTYI, BETTER BOY ... (maybe 1 or 2 more ) In short, gotta keep busy, at least mentally, until the spring arrives. Seeds are saved and the hope is alive. Sey

"Going down to 0 F. tonight (my Zone 7 minimum)." Well, not exactly, as people in a HUGE swath of northeastern NC and southern and central Virginia are finding out tonight. There are currently areas that are listed as 7b on the latest, greatest USDA map that have plummeted as low as -12F! And areas listed as zone 8a that have hit -5F! There are gonna be some dead or severely injured camellias tonight, believe me. Once you go south and east of Richmond the older cultivars become fairly common in gardens. They were often not selected for hardiness. I've driven from Raleigh to Norfolk along back roads and there are plenty planted there. Because the Bay and lower rivers are not frozen, areas like Norfolk, VA Beach, even Kent Island, etc. are doing fine. The worse possible locations seem to be areas along small regional rivers in the upper coastal plain, where the cold air is settling...no wind anymore to stir it up...and there's not enough water to provide counterbalancing warmth. The shocking -12F figure was along the Chowan River. Plant Delights is lucky, they are only about 20 miles away from the area with snow cover, where temps are going below 0F. Which would be the coldest they've been since 1985. As it is I think they will hit 5F. Another cold zone I've noticed before is along all but the southernmost parts of the Patuxent river valley in southern MD. And even along the lower parts, if you're away from the main body of water on a tiny frozen tributary, you're dropping below 0F tonight. All of New England is below zero except for areas right on the water. Of course, it's less of a surprise up there! Sub-0F readings are even popping up on Long Island. I'm surprised there aren't more widespread sub-0F temps in the NJ Pine Barrens. The stations that are showing below 0F are closer to the water, because that's where more snow fell. It's a dramatic illustration of the double-edged sword that is snow cover. Protects things under it, but allows temperatures to plummet during radiative freezes on clear, still nights. We saw this same pattern in the polar vortex winters, too. The coldest places on still nights are places where it's relative flat, but you're still in a depression...and away from large water. With heavy snow cover! One particular night, the center of the Delmarva Peninsula started going below 0F AT 11PM (!) before a lucky change of wind direction occurred. Still many stations hit -5F or so.