OHHHH! Sour grapes from here in Ontario where we're scraping snow and ice from our cars before we can drive anywhere. But there is light at the end of the tunnel - one of the big box stores had bbq's and charcoal in stock yesterday! Lawn furniture can't be far behind.
Jan

Envious but I need more time to plan my purchases this spring. Only one nursery here in Ottawa has published their 2013 list and that's Budd Gardens. Glad to see they're giving hostaholics a break with their 10% discount on orders of five. Too bad I can't get a rain check on that offer!!!

Paula, you may be a wee bit ahead of us. I see some pips but no leaves so far. I still have mine tipped over. A couple of nights ago we had our lowest temp of the season with 29.

Other plants are showing tiny leaves or buds, like my pomegranate bushes. Even the White Bird of Paradise too big to move at 9 feet high, maybe more, shows no leaf damage outdoors. Camellias bloomed but not heavily. My daylilies are all green, never went down for the count, strawberries are leafed out of course, passion vines are already growing and one bright red one never died back. I have two durantas that are looking good still, and some palms as well.

Looks like garden time is about on us in the deep south.
Are you ready for this? :)

Paula...Pfffffllllltttt!!!

Jon

Spring is months away here in Minnesota. Thanks for posting the picture and reminding me that there is light at the end of the tunnel!

Teresa

irawon, Hosta Choice has had their 2013 list out for a while offering specials re: shipping etc. They are great!

hostachoicegardens.com

Shocking news here. Jan ON question? You do not BBQ year round in Canada?

This is way too early for me. Now I have to water him. Darn. Right now I am tied up with the orchids and begonias. My daylilies did die back but not for long. Moccasin you are right behind me and for the rest of the Great North Americas spring is not to far off.

I have some swollen pips showing. A few tiny leaves show on my Aphrodite (I'm still PO'd about getting that one for plantaginea), but nothing I have to water so far. It appears as if the main crown has died again and it's putting up side shoots. Is that typical of the plantaginea group?

bk

SPRING???! Hmmph! You southern show offs, you. You realize most of us are still up to our yahoos in snow, it is only the beginning of February after all. Sigh.

My annual spring clean-up doesn't officially start until after the last putt at the Master's Golf Tournament (this year April 11 to 14). I'm glued to the TV for every minute of those 4 days. After hostas, golf is my other outdoor passion. Sometimes it's a toss up whether I need to water & weed or catch the back-9 of some important tournament. Don't shake your heads, yes, there are important tournaments!

Go water your pips.

ilovetogrow - We do BBQ year round at my house, but many people don't! My DH sometimes has to shovel a path across the deck, and it can be difficult to get enough heat to really do justice to a good steak. We're in southern Ontario - lucky us - among the few Canadians who probably consider BBQing a year round activity. And if we decided to purchase a new BBQ in Nov, Dec, Jan, there wouldn't be many to choose from!! So like growing hostas, it's something many look forward to come spring.
Jan

Nothing here yet. But soon...as some of the fruit trees are flowering around here. Did this one come up for your this early last year too? I have a few that are always the first up, year after year.

-Babka

bite me..

i hope your wolverine starts showing some variegation real fast.. or you are going to have to take that name off it ...

its a jim wilkins homage to the Univ of MI.. its supposed to be maize [which here is yellow] and blue ... that pic doenst show such ... but it might be the hazy pic ...

i am glad for your pips showing.. but it was single digits.. for the last few days .. i am in a mood.. one might say .. lol ...

but dont let that stop you from posting.. you early peeps are all that keeps us.. in the great white north.. from suicide in Feb .. lol ...

ken

Here in zone 5 we usually have no snow after April Fools Day. But this year right now we only have a little snow coating in spots, so that groundhog could be right to forecast an early spring. I always clean after snow is gone end of March/1st week of April, so my rake does not cut any emerging plants. Bernd

Spring? A low of 29? We'll be lucky to get up to 29 today. It's OK, though. Last year spring arrived 6 weeks early, and the early season was very hard on the daylilies, plus lots of hail followed by no rain and record heat all summer. I'll be happy to wait until April and hope for a normal year.

I'll admit I'm starting to dream about fields of hostas, though.

ilovetogrow, shame on you posting a picture of an emerging hosta. Now you've put Ken in a mood. lol

I'm happy enough with our pretty, fresh coating of snow and the hosta alphabet. Keep posting as spring s progresses. We'll do our best to catch up with you come May.

Beverly

Here in Philly mine are still tucked away sleeping snugly. With any luck I won't see pips until May.

Although the silly daffodils got faked out by the warm spell in January and are about an inch and a half out of the ground.

Ludi, I scrolled to the bottom of the thread, saw only the photo with the tipped pots so neatly arranged and turned faces to the wall, and I already recognized WHO posted it. Yeah, the neatly done pots, the familiar expanse of paving and the low wall, it all said LUDI!!!!

lOOKING GOOD THERE, my friend. :)

Bev in MN, Ken might be in a mood, but he won't catch any of the southern contingency hollering about why our hosta orders from MN are not shipping in MARCH. (hehehehehe) Some might come from Naylor then, but I for one can use the rest. I'm pressing the "snooze alarm" on my hosta, rolling their pots back into the shade.

I read the potting mix SteveMass recommended, Fafard 3B, and checked for it locally, and found it at a nursery about 16 miles away, the other side of Mobile Bay. So, ROAD TRIP to Wilsey Nursery in Fairhope AL. Perhaps they will be familiar with hosta too, who knows. While I'm there, I'll see if they have plain bark fines too.

And while we're a bit chatty, I discovered that my smart phone (Android) has a background that RAINS. On Wednesday while the winds were high, it showed the rain blowing sideways....rough weather all on the eastern seaboard that day messing up flights so my DH was late arriving. Then tonight it showed rain again, coming straight down no wind blowing it sideways. Cutest thing I ever saw on a phone. Now I know when to come in out of the rain! :)

Last year it was March and April when the kids came up but I was surprised when I found this guy under a pile of leaves. Ken it is starting to color up and the margins are coming in. Not enough light would be my guess.

Ludi cold chills ran down my spine when I looked at your photo. I have never lived in snow but I was in -15 deg before. Hey what can I say I am week.

Jan I am glad you get your BBQ. I was worried as it is a main food group. Happy days all I will keep you posted of the arrival of spring here, not to brag mind you, but to celebrate. It is go time! Paula

Hahaaa . . . Mocc you make me smile :)

Yes, my OCD does not allow me to not have things a 'certain' way. I have a small obsession with parallels and symmetry. It is subconscious and never made aware to me until someone else points it out. It makes me curious to see how others will view my first garden design this year with the bed I cleared last year.

Those pots have only been tipped for about a week now. They didn't end up freezing until mid January when we had a week of temps in the teens, followed by a week of 40+ degree weather. Global warming much ?

That picture was snapped today from my phone as I was walking in from work. It was a high of 25F today so they are probably all frozen again.

I knew from the advice on this forum to tip them once the first freeze thaw happened.

Funny part is, when I went to go tip them after they started to thaw the bottoms were all frozen solid to the porch. For the life of me I could not dislodge some of them and I had to keep going out everyday to see if any more had thawed enough to allow me to tip them. I ended up cracking one of the smaller gallon nursery pots half way down the middle . . . oops.

They will stay on their sides until I know that we are out of freezing temps. Then I'll right 'em back up and wait . . . and wait . . . and wait.

A watched pot never boils I suppose.

Paula - never lived in snow ??? Girl you haven't lived . . . frigid temps biting at your finger tips . . . never feeling quite warm even wrapped up in a blanket . . . scraping solid ice off your car every morning for a month . . . shoveling pounds of sopping wet snow for hours breaking your back so you can get your iced over car out of your snowed in driveway only to slide off the road on your way to work because you were out before the salt trucks . . . how could you not yearn for cold weather . . . the sarcasm is thick . . . can you tell :)

Cheers to warmer weather !

Ludi

This post was edited by Ludisia on Tue, Feb 5, 13 at 0:00

Spring??? I'm not going to hold my breath. The photo below was taken a couple of years ago in mid March!

This morning at the schoolbus stop, my entrance, the boys threw pieces of ice across the street, no one could hit the tree, but Florida would be nice right now!
Bernd

ilovetogrow, shame on you posting a picture of an emerging hosta. Now you've put Ken in a mood. lol

===>> this post didnt put me in the mood.. i was already there .... its SAD .. seasonal affective disorder.. as usual ...

this post just put my mood in words and pix .. lol ...

and that comment on peeps expecting delivery from WI in march.. spot on .. lol ...

after 5 days of dank grey with no sun.. today it is brilliantly sunny .. still only in the teens .. but just the sun blinding my retinas.. is a great pick-me-up ... its almost a reason to live ... [though that could change in a heartbeat] ...[[carp.. the mood is back.. lol]]

ken

I am in awe of the photo of your snowbank, Squirejohn. Amazing.

One thing I took advantage of in our treks north to DH's home after winter ended. And that was the opportunity to grow things I could not grow in south Alabama. One of those plants was the colorful nasturtium. I went hog wild over them, guess I bought every packet of seeds in town and online too, and wound up first year with a 5 foot wide 100 foot long bed. They were all over the place, as proper nasturtiums do, to the horror of my very meticulous and straight-line DH, who proceeded to mow them into straight borders. Hmmmm, a difference in philosophy is revealed in so many unexpected ways. Next year, using seeds from the previous year, I poked my nasturtiums in that original 100 foot long strip, plus at least another 100 feet in the back garden beneath the blueberries, along the rock walls, and spilling over the raised edges of the patio. I could imagine myself at Monet's Giverny where undulating streams of nasturtiums flowed and flooded his wide walkways. It was pure heaven to me. And, I discovered the hosta, first the "green/white one", and then I ordered my first plantaginea, "Mama," and a matriarchy was born.

I even discovered the beauty and pitfalls of snow, ice, subzero weather, downed power lines, trees breaking .... plus, how to go about daily routines when you are confined in limited space with those you loved a lot more when you could take a break from their presence. :) But I digress.