Today was the first day it was warm enough to work outside that I had the time to go outside. I found a few surprises.

The climbing aster is still putting out new blooms (aster carolinianas - sp?). It usually blooms for me in November. Never seen it bloom in January though. Can you imagine what this baby will be like if it ever reaches its potential of 25 feet and is blooming in January?

The camellia has a couple of blooms left to go, and the daphnes are budding. Can't wait for March to smell the daphne again.

I found a few seeds still clinging to the ligularia and harvested them. I don't know anything about starting ligularia from seed, but if anyone wants these seeds to try it, let me know. It's ligularia Desdemona.

Last summer the sarcococca sent up a shoot in a direction I do not want the plant to grow, so I cut the shoot off under the soil and stuck it in a pot to see if it would grow. I set the pot down next to the house and forgot about it. Saw it today, and it is doing really well (sarcococca might now replace hydrangea as the easiest shrub I know to propogate), If anyone wants a single healthy sarcococca shoot, let me know also.

No daffodils are peeking through yet, but I expect to see them in a couple of weeks. There's a bird convention going on every day at my birdbath. That's the news from the garden.