Im thinking of this from Brecks:
120-Day Full Season of Blooms Collection
* 5 Brecks Colossal Daffodils
* 3 Angelique Tulips
* 12 Mixed Tall Dutch Iris
* 15 Mixed Snow Crocus
* 25 Blue Grape Hyacinths
* 10 Grecian Windflowers
* 8 Mixed Kaleidoscope Tulips
* 25 Mixed Mountain Bells
Thats about a hundred bulbs, but for $49.99 you can get 206 bulbs & there is a 25 off 50 coupon at fatwallet for this store. Otherwise, mostly dirt for now & some lobelia.
Handy - does it get cold enough (below 40) where you live for those types of bulbs? They need a cold period to bloom.
I am far north, and some daffs close to the house on the south side are starting to open. The crocuses are probably rabbit food again, as usual. Looking at my records, my crocus bloomed last year on April 13, but no sign of them now. I have seen signs of bunnies.
I have bought seeds for Cosmos, Calif. Poppies, and morning glory so far, but I won’t plant them until May at the earliest. I suppose I could do the Poppies now, but I haven’t decided for sure where I want them.
Yesterday was spent cleaning up the garden areas, and my big plan is to divide perennials and scale back on some of them - and replace with more colorful annuals.
We have nothing to speak of yet, here by the Lake east of Toronto. pouts The trees are beginning to bud, but not much else that I’ve seen. It’s been unseasonably freekin’ cold though and there’s still a bit of dirty snow left on the ground from the last storm. My neighbour’s riotous crocus (crocii?) plants are still cowering under the soil & my rose bushes have no signs of life yet, but it’s early for them yet.
First weekend in May, weather willing, I’m thinking of planting one or more of the following:
Violas, lobelias, pansies or impatiens. I don’t have much room, and I love the small varieties, especially violas, with their sweet little faces. I have gotten two years lush growth out of one planting of violas so I’m not sure if they’re supposed to be perennials or if I just lucked out. That was great, but the following year, nothing. The small varieties all look great under my dogwoods, yews and spireas.
I’ll find room for some petunias too probably. I like putting the deep purple and yellow ones together for effect. I like the cascading petunias too for hanging baskets, and I find they do well just about anywhere.
Come ON, spring!
I started the peas, tomatoes, and basil on the first weekend in February. The peas are chin-high (I’m about 5’3"), but not blooming yet. The cherry tomatoes are about a foot tall, and the basil (cute widdle babies) just have two sets of real leaves in addition to their baby leaves. These are all in containers on a small screened porch.
This is my first spring in Charleston (SC), so I’m kind of feeling my way along with the plants. We are hoping to buy a house this summer, and I’m really excited about the prospects of having my own dirt to grow in! I’ll even have a try with flowers … meanwhile, I’m just hoping that everything does OK on the porch here.
Good yummy gardening wishes to everybody!
I had a little 3’ by 4’ herb garden last year that did really well, and today I expanded the space to about 3’ by 15’. (This involved hauling approximately 12,000 pounds of dirt up the hill to my backyard, one 40-pound bag at a time.)
In addition to the herbs (including plenty of basil), I’m going to give tomatoes and peppers (a few bell, a few chile) a shot this year for the first time. If I’m feeling adventurous, I may try to grow some hops for my homebrew.
The flowers are mostly CrazyCatLady’s domain, but the primary challenge is defending them from the rabbits and the dogs.
Dr. J
I’m a recent convert toSquare Foot Gardening. Last year I built a 4’x12’ raised bed and filled it. Besides having the first ripe tomatoes for us here in Idaho, I got 40 lbs to can for salsa.
More lettuce, peas, carrots, beets, chard, spinich, beans and spaghetti squash than we could keep up with.
I couldn’t believe how much easier it was than the huge area we used to fight with in years past, only to have it go to weeds.
I just knocked together another frame today and plan to build and start another 1’x12’ or so for more vining crops.
Last year I hauled all the topsoil and compost from town. This year I’m going to try Mel’s mix of vermiculite, peat moss and compost. Costs a bit, but a good investment if last year was any indication.
I’m sold, check it out.
We started some seeds three weeks ago: Sweet peas, chinese lanterns, black pansies and some love lies bleeding. Today we plant the moonflower seeds (daytura, not the vines). We’ll move all these outside in about three to four weeks.
Our tulips are in full bloom and are beeeeutiful. The hyaciths are just about there as are the daffodils. The irises are growing but will probably not flower for a while.
I love spring 
My daffodils started coming up earlier than expected (I thought the ice storm last week would keep them in the ground longer). I decided to move them last year because they were not blooming nicely - they were too shaded and also too crowded. I dug them up and divided them, and moved them to another spot this weekend. I know you are supposed to move bulbs before they come up, but does anyone know if they will survive the transplant? They only have little shoots, and I tried to be gentle with them, and keep their new roots intact.
This is our first house and I am still trying to start new plants, the previous owners did not do much with landscaping at all.
As long as I’m asking questions, I have some ground cover that I would like to move and encourage to spread, can I just take cuttings and put them in the ground?
Our back yard is mostly shade. I have to go and try to find plants to start a shade garden this year.
It’s so nice to be outside again!
"Handy - does it get cold enough (below 40) where you live for those types of bulbs? They need a cold period to bloom. "
Yeah it does, but you can always throw them into the refrig.
I’m right in line with the rest of the Chicagolanders. No one else has mentioned scilla which is blooming presently. My earliest are snowdrops, which are already past. Also early are my witchhazel and cornelian cherry dogwood shrubs/trees.
I got my butt out and cleared my gardens a few weeks ago, so this weekend I found myself with precious little to do. Had to kick back and sip a cold one! Moved my mom’s old climbing rose (probably 60 years old) about 1 foot over where we will trellis it up two walls on one of our house’s corners.
Just about everything is showing signs of life if you look hard enough. Sedum, pulmonaria, and scented greranium have been green for some time. Just noticed my first spikes on one variety of hosta over the weekend. The monarda really has spread. I’ll have to slash and burn that stuff to keep it in control this year. Can see green on everything from anenome, asters, daisies, coneflowers, columbine, epimidium (sp?), heuchera, daylilies, russian sage, iris… Could easily harvest chives. Eagerly awaiting the spring ephemerals.
Damn, the bushes are slow to leaf out this spring.
Lawn looks like shit - as usual. Son is chomping at the bit to crack out the mower and start making some bucks.
Dinsdale! Do not slash and burn the monarda! Repeat - do NOT slash and burn the monarda! Just point me in the right direction and I will come dig out what you don’t want and haul it to my yard, for free (i’m Chicagolandish, too.) Last year the WryGuy accidentally took out the monarda that had been creekside and he’s been in the doghouse ever since.
Do you want some goddamned euonymous in exchange?
I’ve got peas growing very slowly and reluctantly in the vegetable garden. Something–possibly spinach–is appearing, but the onions I planted recently haven’t done anything.
As for flower gardening, I’ve worked on that for five years and spent a lot of money. Let’s just say not all of it was wasted. The plants that died just died and the ones that lived appear to be taking over the yard. I’ve got new spurge, penstemon, and wormwood plants appearing all over the place (they even grow out of my patio) and the prairie zinnias seem to be poised to march out of the flower bed and across the yard. The hummingbird mint has quickly filled the areas where I planted it and it actually does attract hummingbirds.
The part of the yard that’s driving me crazy is the back part under the fruit trees where I can’t get anything to live more than a few years. It may be the shade, but even plants that are supposed to grow in shady areas fizzle out back there.
It’s way to early to do any flower/flat/veggie planting.
I always wait until the mid-end may time.
I’ve started earlier and every time I have lost the work I have done to Mother Nature and her schizo weather.
Velma – what kind of groundcover do you want to move? I know for vinca (periwinkle, myrtle), the easiest thing to do is to trowel up little clumps and move them, roots and all, to where you want to start the new stuff. The remaining stuff quickly fills the bare spots back in. Ditto for plumbago and virginia creeper. I don’t do pachysandra, but suspect that would be another “ditto.”
I’m getting more into shade gardening (as the neighbor’s ornamental pear casts more of my yard into shade). Hostas, astilbe, bleeding hearts, monkshood, columbines, ferns (which reminds me, I want to try again on those ferns from my sister’s garden – but I digress) – there’s a lot of really nice perennials, you’re not limited to impatiens!
With all the recent TMI threads, I thought this one was about something entirely different. Color me ashamed.
LOL! Just last year I tore up a huge area of euonymous, maybe 15’X30’. What a bear! Still have a stand growing as a hedge on the property line - which is INFESTED with scale. So my biggest job this spring is going to be to see how many incredibly nasty poisons I can spew on my lot. If it were my hedge, I’d tear it out and replace it, but the neighbor says no. Maybe I’ll get lucky and it will just die!
The monarda seems to have spread via seed. While the present dimensions are not intolerable, I do not want it enlarging along the same lines next year. Where you at? I’m in Glen Ellyn. If nothing else, I could certainly toss a bunch of seedheads in an envelope come fall.
Thanks, twickster. I’m not sure what kind it is, it was here when we moved in, but I’m pretty sure it’s some kind of creeper. I just pulled some out, making sure to get roots, and re-planted it, so it sounds like it should work. I am trying to cover a steep hill on the side of our house so we don’t have to mow it anymore.
Thanks for the shade plant ideas, too!
My azaleas and dogwoods are finished, and the azaleas need pruning already. The amaryllis popped out a gorgeous bloom and the red salvias are just starting to pop open. The Confederate Jasmine is starting, and purfuming my entire yard with the scent of Florida humidity, as is the honeysuckle.
My herbs are doing well, the pineapple lilies are coming back. The gardenias and hydrangeas are budding and should pop out with blooms in the next few weeks. Oh! My banana tree is also coming back, as are the elephant ears.
Mostly, I grow perennials to attract hummingbirds and flutterbys ('cause they flutter on by) – most of those plants have not quite come back yet, although the firespikes are shooting out lots of new green.
Looks like my gingers didn’t make it through the winter, and I’ll have to re-plant the caladiums as well. The crinum lilies did make it, but they won’t spike out a flower until later in the summer. Yes, I’m in Florida and it’s basically summer here already.
Most of the plants the rest of you mentioned above, have already come and gone by March. I love gardening down here – 10 month growing season.
Flowers/shrubs: planted some forsythia and azalea bushes a couple weekends ago, and a rosebush this past weekend. They’re in a few different beds around the yard.
Veggies: planted four tomato plants last weekend (two Early Girl, two Better Boy), and two bell pepper plants. When I see jalapeno plants for sale, I’ll get one of those, too.
Velma – another way you can go for covering a slope is daylilies. Buy them by the bushel-load and they spread like crazy. Here in Philly there’s 3 or 4 inches of foliage showing on 'them already (we’re up to daffodils blooming right now, the hyacinths also, the tulips are showing fat buds but aren’t yet in bloom, forsythia is right at its peak, to give you an idea how far ahead of you we are [no nyah nyah nyah intended]). You need some sun for this, can’t do it in deep shade – and more sun is definitely better than less. This way you can have great color for huge stretches of the summer (if you plant different varieties). It would take a couple of years to really get established – but us gardeners always take the long view, right?
Let me know if you’d like me to post some links to where you can buy in bulk – I’m at work right now but have a basketful of catalogues at home.