Me, too! I'm seeing more eyes emerge, the biggest surprise for me is Blueberry Muffin seems to be leading the awakening, with 1 1/2 long pips, already! Wow!

Let the Games Begin!!!

-Babka

I'll be giving a report from the central Piedmont of North Carolina later this evening. I saw a half inch pip on Guacamole on Wednesday and covered it up because a freeze to 26f was predicted for Thursday night. I also put half a jar of Vicks Vaporub around the garden.

But now the forecast has a few nights dipping just below freezing in the next few weeks. So what do I do today? Uncover the pips and leave them exposed? How about that 10 percent ammonia drench? Is now the time? And then at what predicted low do I have to go out and cover them?

I've never done anything to my legacy hostas except notice they were up. It's also our favorite way to manage animal reproduction as in "oh, look! A baby goat!"
Thanks in advance for the advice.
Kathy

Kathy, all you can do is cover them. Floating row cover will give you 3 or 4 degrees. You can leave it on until you are sure all danger of frost and freeze is past. I grow in pots, so have different options and problems. Covering with corrugated boxes or sheets will help, too.

Frost and Freeze won't kill anything, just make it look ugly. I'm not sure how bad it will look, but my Invincible froze really badly. It was in the shed, covered just like all the others, but suffered more damage.

The pips that freeze solid will die and be replaced by others. It uses up stored energy to do that. The ones that just get frosted instead of frozen, will have white spots and or irregular margins.The ends of the first leaves of Sum and Substance had divits on them all year last year.

If the pips are more than an inch high, I try to protect them when an overnight temperature is expected to be 32 or lower.

bk

Thanks, bk. That's the info I needed. Long term forecasts aren't that reliable but I noticed they've been trending downward. Let's hope the arctic has forgiven us and will hold its next blast for 2015.
Kathy

Nice, Phil. 'Hippodrome'? Cool, I can't wait to see a pic of that one, Phil (please?) A 'Christmas Tree' and 'Halcyon' hybrid; Two of my favorite plants, rolled into one!

I hope they all come up just fine, Phil. Always love to see pics of your gardens.

Don B.

Plenty warm here in NC today! Montana Aureomarginata and the fragrant family have tiny pips showing as does Blue Angel. There is no sign of my Blueberry Muffin except for a few fibrous hairs where it was last year. A peony that I thought had kicked the bucket has four giant shoots, one 6 inches tall already.

However the winter gods are still angry and snow and ice are possible Monday night. I'll go cover up everything I uncovered today before the forecast changed.

I got a lot of work done and I'm doubling up on my glucosamine because my lumbar vertebrae sounded like popcorn today.
Kathy

What a difference a day makes! Glad to hear things are popping up there in NC. My order from PDN is supposed to ship tomorrow or early next week at least.

Sure hope they send what I ordered. My last order with them for hosta was in May 2010, when they sent at least 3 noids out of the bunch I ordered for our Massachusetts garden. Somebody picking posies was having a very bad day. It took me a long time to figure out what was going on, since I knew nothing about hosta then. Not saying I know much more now, but I keep better track of things at least.

At least 3 noids? In one shipment? That's just...wow. What's Avent growing there in his 'Juniper' Botanic Gardens, and why are his employees smoking it during work hours??

Don B.

I was in Charlotte, NC all last week and with trees blooming and temps in the 70s I can see why you Carolinians have pips up.

Back home now with temps in the low 20s. My next taste of spring will have to wait.

tj

Don,I thought I had posted a pic of Hippodrome last year,but here it is,right after being planted last year. Phil

Thanks, Phil. Nice-looking plant.

Don B.

Don, the accurate part of my order was for S&S, Dick Ward, plantaginea, and Lederhosen. The rest of the order was really screwed up.....instead of a second plantaginea, I got a NOID which resembles my Lederhosen but is not synched with it colorwise. And instead of Brother Stefan I got what Steve Mass tells me is Satisfaction. Then I don't know what happened to Faith, because nothing resembling it was growing.

The order was delivered to MA and planted by my DH, who lost the tags of most of them. But it's not like they were mixed up with his existing hosta....which were all divisions of original U. Albomarginatas purchased 40 years earlier, and planted elsewhere.

Identifying the lot of them was one of my first threads on this forum. I think that was in 2011,