The sunshine has been welcome this weekend after the torrential rains of the past week. I walked my garden and was pleasantly surprised to see life appearing in some of my seemingly dead plants.
Most gratifying for me is a few viable buds on my sasanqua camellias
and tiny green sprouts on some of the gardenias.
I am aching to start pruning, but biding my time to let more plants try to get started. My big leaf hydrangeas are all dead to the soil line,
but I did see some in a friend’s yard that were sprouting on upper stems. The panicle and oakleaf hydrangeas seem fine.
One of my dwarf buddlea isn't showing signs of life, but my standard plant has sprouted from the soil line.
My rosemary is definitely gone, and I see no signs of life on my fig trees.
Time will tell.
In spite of the brown, drab winter, or maybe because of it, the early spring blooms and the various shades of green coming on the trees is a beautiful this year. There is plenty of work to be done without pruning all my shrubs yet, although I do know a lot of pruning is in my future.
It was a red-letter week, as I bought my first new plants of the year this week—some interesting petunias
and stock,
which will both take light cold snaps, plus a red bleeding heart 'Valentine'
. The week ahead forecast doesn’t look bad (except for more rain) but we almost always get a cold snap closer to Easter, and it is 2 weeks away. Don’t buy those tomato plants that are like a garden’s siren now. Be patient.