lisa2004 - I am zone 5 in Massachusetts. In my basement, I start mostly annuals and tomatoes and don't start my seeds under lights until 1st or 2nd week of April if you can believe it! I put my plant seedlings out in the garden Memorial Day or the week after depending on how cold the ground is. So I only keep the new seedlings inside for 6 or 8 weeks. If you start too early inside there are many drawbacks such as there is a chance that plants will be leggy, grow too large for your containers, you have to pay higher electric costs and monitor the plants for water longer etc. If you are starting perennials you could start earlier as they take longer to get going. I have been starting plants in my basement for 14 years now and used to start much earlier and have learned from experience later is better... Until then I get my labels ready which I print on my computer and organize my lists. I map out how many plants I need based on what happened the previous year etc. So there is somethings to do while waiting to get planting but I know what you mean about wanting to do something garden related. In the meantime, I try to go to some of the garden shows in the area or go to a gardening related lecture or class.

I'm on the NC/VA border and most of my orders won't arrive for another 3 weeks. Mine are coming from Roses Unlimited and are greenhouse grown so they need to be protected from frost. I'm with JB from VA; protect the roses during cold nights and give them time to acclimate. It's a very good idea to call ARE for their advice. I always give newly arrived roses some time to recover from travel; on nice days they sit on the screen room out on the deck, which gives them a little wind protection.

Paula, I was really shocked that snakes are out already, but even more so that the one Chris saw was out early in the morning after a night that was so cold. I hadn't been worrying too much about snakes, so I've been sticking my hands into places blindly....like to pull winter grass growing under a shrub or whatever. I'll be more careful now. I have a lot of stacked-up hay bales to use for mulch. I was hoping to get most of that hay layered onto the garden beds and the pathways before the snakes were up and moving around too much. It is too early to put heavy mulch on the beds because the mulch would keep them from warming up. Right now I want them to warm up so they are not mulched unless they're already planted with cool-season crops. I am so bummed out by this. We are usually fairly snake-free until April. I feel cheated! We just lost 2 months of being snake-free. I was raking up decomposed mulch today from the pathways and adding it, as compost, to garden beds. Usually I scoop it up with my gloves hands and drop it into the bed right beside the pathway. Since the compost is thick enough that a snake could be in it, I switched from using my hands to using a compost scoop, which seems slower to me. Even all these signs of an early warm-up don't mean we are done with winter. We often have snow in March and seem to always have cranky cold or rainy weather around Easter. Easter cannot get here fast enough for me. Rural gardening with plentiful wildlife around is challenging enough as it is. We don't need snakes out in mid-winter to make it even more of a challenge. Dawn

That depends on how much you paid for the tree and how much you are willing to risk your investment! The arctic glo nectarines are good down to Zone 6, so if you plant after the ground has warmed up a bit and place it close to the wall, you should be good. If you decide to keep it in a pot, summer prune it to keep it at a manageable size. Best of luck!