March, 2012!! Spring has sprung (or is springing-maybe).

It's March already and time for a new chat thread. Join us here and show us your new spring blooms!
We came from here:
http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1240468/#new

The first photo is a red (looks dark purple) hellebore--a couple of my other hellebores have buds on them, too. I brought all of them with me from Cabot when I moved last March so I was pleased that they are doing well and even blooming this season!

the 2nd photo shows some of the sedum which I also brought with me. Kathy Ann originally gave this to me. It is either Autumn Joy or Autumn Fire--I have both but won't know which one this is until it blooms.

the 3rd photo shows a larger view of the Japonica (flowering quince) shrub which I posted on the previous thread.

Oh, wow, Sandra! I just read the excerpt from the book you just finished reading! I can see why you are calling it the best book you ever read. Wouldn't it be wonderful if all doctors had that kind of faith and would pray with and for their patients? I know my cardiologist is a good Christian man but even he has never offered to pray with me or for me. I have no doubt, however, that he does pray for his patients in private.
While reading the story of Maria, I could not help but think that it was an aneurysm that caused Buddy's death. His "official" cause of death was listed as an "intracranial hemorrhage" but I now believe that it was caused by an aneurysm.

Okay, now on to more pleasant things. Speaking of spring blooms, this is a photo of Gentle Giant--a daffodil. I took this photo back in 2008. This has become one of my all-time personal favorite photos of flowers which I have grown and photographed.

Ok, started this message and got interrupted, and when I finally posted, Marilyn had the new link up - so just reposting it here! ^_^ Beautiful daffodil Marilyn!! Love that hellebore too. I don't have any of those but I am thinking I might need to try a few. They are shade plants, correct?


Trying to catch up with everyone! Jeri - God is great! So glad He is blessing you with whatever is going on!

Elaine, so sorry to hear about your friend's father. I know that it is such a shock for them, and it will be difficult for them for a long time! What a shame that he was just getting ready to enjoy his retirement years!

Charlotte, congratulations! Doesn't surprise me a bit, but I know it is nice to be recognized for all your hard work! So sorry that things are deteriorating rapidly. Prayers for you and Jeff for strength during this trying time. It is a very hard time both emotionally and physically.

I don't have time to do much reading, but I will try to check out that book Sandra.

I have a couple of old home places that I am trying to get to - want to dig up some more daffodils and get them out. I know technically they should put done in the fall, but I have put out several this way, and they seem to be doing better than the expensive bulbs! :)

Hope everyone has a great day! Wish I was home working in my yard! There is SO much that needs to be done. Every bed is in BAD shape!

Genna

Oh, and one more cooking related question...... the banana nut cake that I made was "way too heavy" according to my sister. and I agree. It had three bananas in it. Is THAT what made it heavy? or would it have been something else? I am trying to search for an alternative recipe and I don't know what to look for different than the first one because I am not sure what the cause of the heaviness was, but I am assuming it was the bananas.

Thanks for all the help!!

Genna I have Virginia's banana cake recipe, I will post later, getting breakfast ready now, I just wanted to say one more thing about the book, Levy is a Jewish name, he goes into great detail about his calling to be a Christian in it.

My grandmother Black used to make Jam cakes. I bet they were something like your banana nut cake. She used jam in the cake batter and then she put a filling between the layers and then poured a glaze of some sort over the cake. One of my cousins posted a picture of a cake she had made on FB recently. My first thought was it looked just like Grandmother's jam cakes. It wasn't but she thought the same thing - it was just a recipe she had decided to try. Then my cousin that has all her families recipes looked to see if she could find Grandmother's jam cake recipe - but she couldn't find it. They were always ugly cakes but delicious. They would usually crack open they were so moist. My daddy loved them!

Genna, I make a banana nut bread that had 2-3 bananas in it but it is totally different from a cake batter and it has buttermilk & oil in it and the batter itself is very heavy and totally different from a cake batter. So I doubt it is the bananas that make it heavy. Probably the proportion of eggs and flour and liquid ingredients as well as the type of flour used too. I always use cake flour when I'm baking a cake from 'scratch'.

Jeri I am sore today mostly my hands from pulling weeds. I got a long bed clean today and about 15 bales of straw put out. My caladiums came in yesterday too. I got a big box of end of season clearance amaryllis and 100 daffs today. I will have to get busy potting the caladiums , amaryllis and putting out the daffs. I still don't have everything to mix my dirt for my caladiums. You know you wait for all this stuff and it comes in all at once. Are you going to pot your caladiums or put them straight in the ground?
I am bad to jump around too but I am trying to discipline myself this year so at least some of it looks finished. Usually when I am cleaning up a bed I think I need to thin something then I'm off to another bed to put it somewhere. I transplanted some mondo grass today but that's all I allowed myself to move.

Charlotte hope things were bearable for Jeff today. I hope his dad is comfortable with the morphine. Bless you for all that you are doing too.
Elaine remembering your friend and her family.

Sandra hope I can find that book in audio.

Marilyn I love you pictures especially the daff. I had a couple different ones blooming today but the wind was blowing and I couldn't get a very good photo.

The last photo I have forgotten the name of this bush but this is the first time it has bloomed and has been in the ground about 5 years. Very slow grower. See all the winter weeds in my lawn. My husband actually used a lawn service this year that was supposed to help prevent all these weeds. So much for that.

Cindy you got a lot done today!! I don't seem to be making much progress. I had some things I needed to get ready for my booth this morning and by the time I took them down to the antique mall and ran a couple of other errands I only had 30 minutes or so of daylight!

I should be getting my caladiums any day now also. The only other thing I've ordered is some astible. Cindy I will put my caladiums bulbs in pots when they get here. I also have some in the garage I saved from last year. I need to go ahead and get those in some pots as well. If I don't put them in pots it will take forever to get them going. I can't put them in the ground until late April. You've reminded me I need to make a run to Lowe's or somewhere and get some ingredients for my pots. I'm like you, I mix up several things for my pots.

I love that first daff picture. I have some solid yellow ones similar to that but really love the multi color combination.

I think I mentioned before we're going to have a community garden for my neighborhood POA members. We have the area all cleared and now we're going to build raised beds. Several guys built the first one last week. We're supposed to build more one the 17th. I'm going to do one for some vegetables. One think I want to do is asparagus. I know it will take a couple of years before I can harvest anything but want to give it a try. Gardeners Supply Co. has 25 crowns of Jersey Supreme for 19.95. Anybody have any other suggestions as to where I might find some??

Things seemed to be pretty calm for Jeff today. I did feel sorry for him when he came over to pick up food this afternoon - he comes every day at 5:30. I could just tell he really would have liked to just sit down and talk for awhile. He keeps bringing personal stuff of his dad's he wants to keep over here (pictures, etc). That has to be sad too. He will get through it somehow! It's something we have all faced or will face. I just hope that when my time comes it will be fast. Don't want to have to put him through this again. That's one of the problems of being an only child.

Cindy, I heard on the news today that IPad 2 has lowered their price by 50 bucks, the 3 should be coming out soon. I love the Kindle app, I have not listened to a book in a long time now.

I think I am going to wait awhile on the Ipad, Sandra although I can't get near Jimbo's anymore. He is on it everynight. I am having a few eyesight problems again and reading a novel is not easy on the eyes. My eyesight should be better in a few weeks so maybe then..

I know you want to wait for the 3 anyway, I wonder if it will have Siri on it? Do you use her much on your phone?
It is 80 here, but we are under a tornado watch until 9pm tonight.

More sad news! I know Debra doesn't post here anymore but thought you would want to know what is going on with her. Debra and her family needs lots of prayers right now. David's oldest son Matt took his life yesterday. He is the one with the little boy Debra has been keeping. He recently went through a divorce but she said he seemed very optimistic about his future and they had no idea he was contemplating anything like this. She sent me an email this morning and I called her this afternoon. She and David were in the car when I got her and we just visited briefly so don't know any other details. They had just left the funeral home. But I just thought you all would want to know. This has to be one of the hardest things a parent could ever face.

Oh, my goodness! How terrible! Prayers for Debra and her entire family!

How terribly sad for Debra and her family - praying for them all

I am so sorry to hear this, I had to read it twice, when I saw Debra's name I immediately thought of Pop, then to see it was their son, I am so sad for them.

They have been having a lot of problems with Pops too. He had a mild stroke about a month ago. It didn't leave any damage. However they don't feel he is steady enough on his feet to shower alone. He lives in an apartment in an assisted living facility. So they have a sitter come in for a couple of hours in the morning and then again late in the afternoon. His dementia is getting really bad. David stops by to see him every day on his way home. Pops is 97 now.

Yes, I knew he had suffered the stroke, I know this will also be very hard on him

Really sorry to hear this. Will keep them in my prayers.

My sister came to help me today. She cut back a few things while I cleaned out another bed and put out straw.
My scilla beginning to bloom

Sandra I forgot to answer you. Yes I do use Siri.

Got weeds? want some of mine. I'm dreading cleaning this one. Ever since it went under water the weeds in it have been awful. There are so many weeds in the grass around this bed you can't see where the beds start. I was hoping it would be dry enough to mow tomorrow but it rained this afternoon so probably not. I am so sick of rain.

I plan to get out and get some work done in at least my front beds tomorrow.

A couple of places in the back I had put a thick layer of pine needles to protect some things this winter. I decided I had better pull I off. I found a piece of fire spike (at least that what it looks like) that is just as green as can be!!

It was 80 today. Stuff is just popping out like crazy. My astible is sprouting up.

http://davesgarden.com/guides/ls/
Have y'all ever seen all these photos? I never knew this was here. Really beautiful Landscapes. It is nice to see what some of our fellow dgers landscapes look like.

I told you all on leap day it had been 4 years since my last back surgery-it also snowed the week after that. They were forecasting it and we called my doc about getting the staples out a day early before it hit. I sent Pat home when we got back, she had been staying with me and the next morning we had a pretty good snow. I am really afraid to pull all the leaves out of my beds just yet.

Cindy your beds look just like some of mine - I call mine the re-forestation project because it seems like the forest is determined to take my yard back over. This year I am pulling everything out of the two worst offenders in my yard - one of them I am turning into part of the yard and letting DH mow it and the other one I am going to plant trees or bushes in and cover the ground with weedblock and then mulch to try and contain the grass.

I've just decided to surrender these two beds and hope that helps with the rest of them:)

Sandra I raked leaves out of my beds today and I'm steady telling myself it is too early but it is too beautiful outdoors to stay inside and wait for spring. I'm sure I am going to pay for it though.

Karen I took everything out of that bed in 2010 and redid it. I put herbicide down in it all summer and covered it in pine straw. That bed and my daylily pen have been the worst to deal with the weeds after being under water for nearly six weeks in 2009. I am going to fight it one more year but if it looks like this next year it's going back to grass. That has always been my prettiest bed during the summer. I think it is because where it it situated with the river in the background. I am abandoning the daylily pen which is huge. I had more than 350 different daylilies in there. I am moving what survived the flood out to beds. I am tired of fighting weeds in there. I have some tall weeds in there that have long tap roots. I have dug them and roundup-ed them but it's like they just move over to another spot. I think if I get everything out of there I can eradicate the weeds in there. My sister and I dug up about 25 clumps today after cleaning and mulching another bed. Now I've got to dig holes for them to go in down my driveway. I'll get it all done one bite at a time if it will just stop raining. I know you have some big beds like I do and it gets old trying to fight the weeds in all of them.

So sorry to hear about Debra and David's loss...... it is rough on everyone when a suicide is involved! It is such a waste! Prayers for strength for all of them.....

The daffodil photos are lovely! I have seen that scilla before but didnt know what it was called.....

Oh, and I totally understand weeds! All my beds are in a total mess - one is completely covered with bermuda grass and I have NO idea how I am going to get it under control ....it is so hard to RU effectively because of the thin blades and it spreads like wildfire. at least I think it is bermuda. I am not good on grass/weed ID. After being unable to work outside from June on last year - every bed is in pitiful shape. Not sure there is any way I will get them all cleaned up.

Headed to LR again for more work today. Hope the weather is nice! Prayers for everyone who was in the path of that storm yesterday! It looked like a monster on tv and apparently it did tremendous damage. Hope that everyone is safe!

Have a great day!
Genna

This message was edited Mar 3, 2012 7:32 AM

Sandra I know it can snow in march. I remember a number of times it has. This has been such a strange winter. I just have a feeling it is going to continue to be fairly warm. Plants are so confused. My tulip tree has fully bloomed and the flowers are starting to fall off. Bradford pears are blooming everywhere here - and they are everywhere!!! I even have a few azaleas that have opened. I just looked out my den window and noticed a few blooms on the one in front of the window and I saw some on a bush in the back yesterday. I noticed that SAMs has a really good price on a big bag of miracle grow potting mix. I was in a hurry and didn't want to fool with it when I saw it but think I'll go back today and get some.

Charlotte, so sorry to hear about Debra and David's loss of his son. That is so shocking and sad and will be praying for them their families.

Cindy, I know what you mean about the weeds! I cleaned out one bed last year and it was pristine...or so I thought. This spring, the darn campion sprung up everywhere even though I thought I had cleaned almost all of it out! I knew I left a few clumps in one spot but it must have reseeded and little ones came up all over the bed. I spent last Sunday afternoon pulling almost all of them up again. I think I'm just going to get rid of it because it's such trouble. I love it but it's just not worth it. And I had mulch on that bed too. Got to decide what else I want to do with that bed. I was planning to keep perennials (deer proof) but now I'm not sure.

Genna (and all) we survived once again another round of bad weather. But some folks in north Madison county got hit again. Some had just moved in a month or 2 ago after rebuilding from last April's storms. There was one tornado warning about 14 miles from us that was headed our way but it dissipated and was called off, thankfully. They say the terrain you live in is a factor and I think it is. Thankfully, no one was killed or severely injured yesterday in this area.

My Encore azaleas have buds all over them and I think I can see one bloom this morning, but yes it can snow in March around here! We'll see what happens.

I really hope spring is here, but we have also had snow in April, with the crazy winter we have had who really knows what to think?? Jeri, is the pecan tree coming out yet? Those storms yesterday should have awakened all the trees. We have a couple of blooms on one of the peach trees here.

Elaine, I think you would be better off to just enjoy the campion as trying to eradicate it. They have millions of seeds every year and you will probably be trying to fight it the rest of your life in a nice mulched bed.
I would just pull up the rosettes that looked out of place as they came up and enjoy the rest.

Elaine you might try putting a pre-emergent like preen or treflan (cheaper and very effective) in that bed so the seeds won't germinate. Of course it will stop other seeds to if you count on them in that bed.

Here are a few spring blooms from my neck of the woods 1st is a purple anemone, then tete a tete daffodils, quince, periwinkle and finally not a bloom but just a good picture of variegated something or another (why is it that the name always escapes you when you need it most?)

nice photos Ican't recall the name either but I think it is limelight something.

Karen I have the same affliction ALL THE TIME!! So nice to finally be seeing so many pretty blooms!!

Yes Cindy Limelight Artemisia I could NOT remember that - how crazy.

Here's one more picture for today - we FINALLY got to have the twins 5th birthday party - LONG story but here they are in all their glory.

OH I lied one more photo - today I started digging up the iris in a bed I put in 4-5 years ago that has been over run with weeds and the iris no longer bloom - I think that it is a combination of not enough sun, too many weeds, too much soil over their roots and waaaaay too much overcrowding. I spent about 2-3 hours digging today and honestly you can't tell I even dug up anything I had a whole cart full so I counted them before I came in and I have dug 270 tubers of iris today. There are at least that many more out there so if you guys know of anyone starting out who'd like some iris please let me know.

Most of them are old fashioned iris - there are a few new varieties in there - or at least there used to be. This picture is from 2009 when they were in full bloom. Obviously I have no idea what tuber is what iris so if anyone wants them they'll just be getting whatever they get. I do know there were quite a few Portrait of Larrie in there originally and a cranberry Ice one as well.

Anyway if anyone wants some iris I have 'em:)

Cindy did you see Chef Mike's coop?

https://picasaweb.google.com/108349550261841974256/ORCHIDSANDBROMELAIDS?authkey=Gv1sRgCNbQjPCSju7uBw

Real good price on ground orchids.

where is the info on that coop? Those are some beautiful photos although I assume most will not survive here!

cute girls and really nice iris

Thanks Jeri I gave you the wrong name for the ground orchid that will survive here. These I think are not hardy.

Sandra, I have so many rosettes it was impossible to leave them. The whole bed was covered in them, so I left a few of the larger clumps and dug up all the others. I love campion, but I'm thinking I will just move it out of this bed.

Cindy, I did put out Preen in the paths between this bed and the other, but I wanted the gallardia to re-seed and I also have some other perennials in this bed. The campion was like a carpet!

I was going to post some photos, but have tried twice DG won't let them load! I'm going to try just 3 and see what happens. I've typed this 3 times and am about to give up!

Kathy, lovely blooms!

Here we go again...wouldn't post 4, so I'll have to stick to 3. A blurry pic of a pink hellebore because it was windy, pieris, and the verbena starting to bloom. If this doesn't post, I'm giving up for a while.