It's the only thing I dread about Spring and Summer. The darned mosquitos. I'm already trying to think of things to do this year that I didn't do last year. I'm in Texas, so we didn't have quite the winter you did and I haven't seen one yet, but I just know they are lurking and waiting...

Hi Dirtgirl,
How the heck do mosquitos survive this fairly cold winter??
Early this evening, I heard a barred owl, a red-winged black bird, a song sparrow, a towhee and........a woodcock!

No mosquitos yet in Madison, we still have ice on Lake Monona. But I did listen to a pair of cardinals in conversation the other day. I think they were discussing sex.

Thankfully, we have a screened-in porch to enjoy during the mosquito season, although I have to be outside if I want to work in the garden! It's still winter here in upstate New York. Limited signs of spring have included a cardinal singing, titmice making their peter-peter-peter calls, and hairy woodpeckers playing "let's go 'round the tree trunk." Not much else yet.

Skunk!
He was wondering around outside and then disappeared. I think he may have gone into my neighbors garage because the door doesn't shut completely. Boy is my neighbor in for a surprise if that skunk has been living in there.

Oh no, DG..........I can't bear to go from mud season straight to skeeters. Please say it ain't so! (Our mud season just started, so I'm guessing you are a few weeks ahead of us. It has been 50 degrees for the past few days though.

Oh I totally forgot about the other obvious indicators...red tails squatting on their nest, red shouldered hawks chasing each other back and forth above the yard all day and doing that "Kee-yeer!" scream until you find yourself thinking of cicadas, and of course let's not forget the wood ducks. They are once agin poking around every dead snag with a hole in it.
But I should change one thing...arond here anymore,hearing the frogsong doesn't really qualify as an indicator of change. They seem to have become immune to colder temps and we now hear them just about every month of the year.

You must not be from the southeast. :) We have mosquitos here year round. There aren't as many in winter, but as long as we don't have a hard freeze, there are always still a few hanging around.

Yeah, I feel kinda...cheated somehow. We usually get about a month or two of really wonderful spring temps and light breezes, and you can work outside, take strolls and even pick morels without the need for pants or sprays. I was thinking of getting myself the hammock as a birthday gift and spending some nights outside but now I don't know. Having to drape myself in mosquito netting would take a bit of the fun out of it....

Saw the first robin today--not in the park or my carefully planted garden, but on the tiny post office lawn in the middle of town.

Crocuses in my garden (leftovers from before native-only planting) are in bloom today.

I'll trade you all your mosquito's for our TICKS!
Got our first about this time last year but none yet (knock on wood)
Mary, south east Nebraska

We've got deer ticks out in their teeny tiny millions here in SE PA - the dogs and I were crawling with them the other day. Hadn't even occurred to me that they might think 40 was as balmy as I did. I'll take skeeters any day over those guys. I think my odds of getting malaria (or even West Nile) are less than picking up Lyme...

I'm not sure I've ever seen a deer tick, but I'm sure they're here. I would be so scared of Lyme. It's a nasty disease. Be careful jill!

I saw a chipmunk just now. I saw signs of chipmunks earlier this week, but today I just looked out the window and he was running, jumping to the flower garden. Sarah

I saw the season's firt roadkilled garter snake a few days back, and the wood ducks are staking out nest spots. I didn't clean those boxes out any too soon I guess.......

The Mallards are back on the pond. That is always the first sign of spring here. I'm so glad the subdivision put those aerators in last year (to keep open water circulating)

Today, tho, we are in the midst of a huge late winter snow-
storm. Wet and droopy and salt-laden. Nasty stuff. By tomorrow most of it will have melted.
Pondy

We've already got the first few spring migrants back (brown headed cowbirds were the first to arrive in my yard), but I'm still waiting for the catbirds. I had a nesting pair last year that I hope will return. Some of the year-round birds have already been gathering nesting materials for over a week now. I brushed my dogs and cat thoroughly the other night and put all the fur out for the early nesters. And of course, the house flies are back, ick. I've also seen quite a few bumble bees around, too...mostly hanging around the blueberries, which are in full bloom, and around some kind of evergreen hedge that I suppose has very tiny hidden blossoms on it now. Sooo, I'd say the wildlife agrees, spring is now here in the deep south!

I saw a large flock of robins on the baseball field--maybe still congregated from their migration, or in mid-migration? I think the juncos are gone. I'm looking for the native sparrows--the ones with the stripes across their eyes (differentiating between closely related bird species is not my thing--asters stay still so you can compare them to Peterson's). Lots of hawks around--I assume they're migrating through, but we also seem to have some year round (thank god, because the rabbits were getting totally out of control).

I cleared the maple leaves off the woodland garden yesterday--maybe a bit too early, but last year I was too late and the Virginia bluebells never caught up. The garden is beneath an enormous Norway maple, so I let the leaves lie in fall but they have to be raked off in spring. Blue lobelia, iris, columbine, tiarella, and dicentra were all in active growth beneath the cover. Little bits of ginger are peeking out. No sign of bloodroot, bluebells, Virginia waterleaf, anemone, wild geranium, or jacks yet. Ferns still tightly wound up. Last year I missed the time to divide and transplant them, and I don't want that to happen this year.

On the shrub front, elderberry all show small leaf clusters, and buds on Aronia are swelling. Not much else going on, but I'm getting impatient. Honeysuckle (a native, but a hybrid) is showing active growth. My husband climbed up on the ladder and gave the Virginia creeper its annual haircut yesterday. Spring chores are done for now, because it's too early to rake the litter off the perennial beds.

Elaine, know exactly what you mean about the native sparrows. Got the obvious ones down pat like the white-throats and the white crowns and so on, but the smaller ones that sulk in the low brush and are really flighty get me every time.

I was thinking your bluebells and some of the others should have been ok under such a deep carpet of leaves, though. Everything here is totally wild and left to its own and in about a month or so there won't be a thing visible except bluebells, trout lily, dogtooth violet, bloodroot, young mayapples and a scattering of jack-in-the-pulpit. Oh and the new growth on the wood nettle, a lesser favorite. :)

I am keeping a close watch for the ginseng that re-emerged after I burned some honeysuckle off. I hand-planted the 12 or so seeds that developed and covered the plants in chickenwire to keep the turkeys out and now we shall see what happens this year.

Well, now that I think of it there may be a big difference between my patch of 'bells and yours...there has usually been a flood or two here and perhaps my leaf litter isn't a uniform carpet that covers them but rather a washed-across clumped-and-piled type of thing. At any rate the other stuff just shoves its way right on through the litter.

The buds are swelling on the pawpaws already-- won't be long before those weird crimson flowers are making their stink and drawing pollinators. And the catkins in the bladdernut thickets are all faded and dingy brown now, not the bright yellow they once were.

Nothing here is natural. I planted every single thing I mentioned. This is an old suburb dominated by lawns and big Norway maples, and my woodland garden is right smack under one of those monsters (the tree is actually in a neighbor's yard). Those leaves form solid mats that actually come up in sheets when you pull them up--nothing can poke through. I found bent-over, pale iris foliage and white new growth on dicentra. But I think I was in time for the bluebells this year--I saw none of their foliage.

I've gotta get out and clean the bird boxes out - I am resisting any tidying impulses for the garden quite yet. The juncos and other winter visitors are still here in large numbers, but some of the spring visitors are back, and a lot of them are feeling amorous...

Yesterday I did some trimming on one of my overgrown trumpet vines before they get any leaves But there is still alot more trimming to do on it. The other one I just left alone because it's between my house and the people behind me and I would rather the trumpet vine grow as opposed to their tangled prickly vine. I forget the name of their vine but it's not native to here and it grows like crazy. I also raked some leaves up from my non native sawtooth oak trees they are always the last to lose their leave and If I had another two large trees to take their place I would cut them down in a minute. Sarah

dirtgirl, I'm envious!! My pawpaws aren't evening showing any signs of leaves yet, and they probably won't have buds for another three or four years. I bought them last winter and they did very well, grew about 6 inches last summer. They're still less than 3 feet tall, though. They took forever to start showing any green last year! I thought they were dead for a while, because they didn't start to leaf out until late April. My chokeberry and most of the dogwoods around here (mine included) are still dormant or still budding, with very flew blossoms yet. My viburnums aren't doing anything yet, either. In fact, other than all the pansies and daffodils in the front yard, my yard still looks rather bare and brown. I'm wondering when my new shrubs are going to arrive...they're suppposed to be sent in March, and March is almost over.... I want to plant all my new natives!

I have one rule of thumb here...if it's dead, I planted it. If it's thriving, it's either a) completely wild and needs/gets no help from me or else it's b) something exotic that just fell off a boat from Thailand and eats 20 acres of woodland a year.

SPRING??... I don't think we are every going to see it this year :o) - 6-10" more white stuff for us here in RI tonight - so much for the outside Easter egg hunt for the "grandies" on Sunday.. maybe I'll have them wear their boots and have a snow hunt.. take care all !!

I swear the winter this year has lasted 3 years! It's so cold and dreary. I'm trying to be patient ........but.....but.......whhhhhhaaaaaaaaaa!!

Well, I cleared the woodland garden over the weekend, I saw some bluebell foliage yesterday, and today it's snowing. I guess they'll be OK.

They're fine! Yay! this plant does not spread rapidly for me, so I'd hate to lose any.

I came across a strange little patch of completely and perfectly white bluebells years ago. They were surrounded by the usual blue variety so they really made a statement! I carried an old washtub down there and carefully dug several large clumps to transplant here and after all these years they still haven't spread too much. And yes, they still bloom snow-white. Naturally, I refer to them as my whitebells...
Speaking of native blooms, I read that tradescantia (spiderwort) is notoriously hardy and easily propogated but they have been a large disappointment so far for me. Maybe this is because I initially relied on stock that I bought from a dealer instead of simply relocating some from the woods around here. I didn't think I wanted to dig up any of the stuff right here because most things do best right where they are without some human trying to 'improve' things, but maybe I should stick with a strictly local variety. If I dig a few tradescantia plants for my native bed here closer to the house, will they recover soon enough as I have read? And I'm talking about my own property and not just going about willy-nilly digging up stuff all across the county...

I find that trandescantia multiples rapidly. I have it in a spot that gets half a day of sun, and it's a plain old commercial kind from a local nursery. I'll need to thin it out soon.

Do you have any trouble with squirrels digging the roots?
Last year was the first year for my bed and the squirrels really did a number on them. I am not sure if they were burying things in the mulch and as a result disturbing the plants (I did find acorns) or targeting the roots themselves. Once I get the things established and have a fairly thick stand they are welcome to dig around like they would in the woods.

Squirrels will always mess things up if you mulch. The only time I've ever had squirrel damage was in beds in front that I feel compelled to mulch for the sake of neatness. In the back, where I never mulch anything, the squirrels never do any damage.

Love my squirrels/ but have found "someone" steals my hens & chickens. I plant them on the hill, and within days they just vanish. Did have trouble with them snitching my tulip bulbs last year (of course the prettiest one ). LOL