Perfect placement

You may remember over the summer when I salvaged "the rock" from my childhood yard and placed it in my front garden.

It seems I positioned it "perfectly" -- right on top of a bunch of crocus!

So early

When you have four days or more in a row of 65ºF (18ºC) temperatures in February, strange, potentially bad things start happening.

Trees wake up early. Very early. I noticed this magnolia when driving home from the bakery on Friday. Yes, that's Friday, February 24. Magnolia blooms.

Another bamboo tale

Since temperatures have been around 70ºF (21ºC) for the last few days, I decided that it was time -- as early as it is -- to get the stream running again. I'm not going to show you that, as it involves lots of black, smelly water.

I will share something I noticed though, as I stood back and admired the scene (that moving water makes such a big difference!)

Briefly, bamboo

Every year as winter comes to a close (or appears to as our crazy warm temperatures seem to indicate) I take a look at the bamboos and assess the cold damage that was done.

Although we've had an overall quite mild winter, there were a couple of cold snaps where the temperature got down to about 4ºF (-15ºC) each time. Even a night of this will cause damage to most temperate bamboos.

Amazing: life!

I talked a bit about the trouble I have growing hellebores, but today I'm amazed at something else:

I've been able to keep rhubarb alive!

Coconut, round 2

My first battle with the coconut didn't go too well, and since I was tired of having the partly-open thing on the kitchen counter, I got serious yesterday.

The result: success! Sort of.

What's the deal with my Hellebores?

I've grown just a couple of hellebores during my time as a gardener, and I have to admit, I'm not having much success.

The first one I got was a large division, and it died before the end of the season. There was another somewhere that I don't remember seeing for the last couple of years, and this is my current one. Doesn't look too bad, but where are the blooms?

Coconut

Remember the coconut I brought home from Florida? I was trying to decide if I should try to let it sprout, or just eat it.

I decided that letting it sprout would just result in a year or more of extra work (trying to keep the plant alive) if it even worked, so time to eat!