Hi Kathy! Glad to hear that unexpected plants are returning. I am having the same thing happen in my garden. It is so exciting at the moment! I also know how you feel about being inside. I promised my husband I would finish the painting in the guest bedroom this week, but guess what - i haven't even been to buy the paint yet! As for cleaning..........I have family coming in on the 24th of this month, so will do a big clean the week before. Good, now i have convinced myself that that is all ok, i will go back in the garden again today!

Yes, the arrival of the spring ephermals is so nice! I run around for a few minutes every day looking for new sprouts. Everything is coming back so nicely.

Unfortunately, I am forced to spend most of my gardening time pulling out japanese honeysuckle. However, the other day I was amazed to find several pieces of native honeysuckle mixed in! I've tied them up to trellises to see how they do (especially now that I've removed the competition).

Kathy, I recently got some iris verna, it's very nice too.

So esh how can you tell the difference between the two honeysuckles when they are not in bloom? I ahve been ripping out what I thought was all Japanese Honeysuckle like mad, but occasionally I find some that looks slightly different but I always decide it is more honeysuckle.
Ih and I am also finding lots of cranesfly orchid coming up this year. I can't wait to see how it all fills in this year it is still a very young woodland garden as I just did the first of it in 2003 and that was minimal, most was 2004-2005.

Barbara my inlaws are coming next week, I'll probably clean the night before like usual.

Hi Kathy,

The basic answer is foliage. The japanese honeysuckle has scalloped edges and this other one does not. Also, this one's foliage is just a bit more "blue green" than "green green". I'll tell you that the ONLY reason I recognized it as different is that someone else id'ed it on a plant rescue and we all took notes.

I'm still not sure which lonicera it is. I guess I may have to wait until it flowers. It if turns out to be some hybrid or something foreign, I think I can easily rip it out then.

I'll really enjoying having this honeysuckle get cleared out. I feel like I can really do something with this woodland now!

Yeah! today I discovered that the Black Cohosh that I got from that same rescue is also alive. It appearred to die off right after I planted it and I assumed it didn't make it, but it did! Now if I could just see some signs of life in the fairy rose that I dug up and let sit for two days in the sun before transplanting last week.