I was thinking about doing this too! It's really a good idea, and will be fun to look at later!

At our other house, I kept a log the first few years of bloom times on the bulbs, flowering trees and perennials. It really helped me design the garden so that something would be in bloom all the time. I was thinking the other day, I need to do that at our new house too.

It's not just temperature that you have to get them adapted to, it's also direct sun. Sounds like you cooked them.

That's exactly why I started my gardening blog earlier this year. =)

I sort of, kind of did the garden journal. I put my pictures on a webhosting service with a nice description and the date (either exact or month and year) and now I can go back at any time and see what was growing in my yard and garden during those years. I also ordered "booklets" for about $17 which had as many or as few pictures in them as I wanted. Just another idea for ya.

Yep, they cooked. If it had been an overcast day like this past week....
next in journal : look at weather forecast before planting ANYTHING
next : don't always count on weather forecast

At least don't count on weather.com. It seems like every time it's going to rain, I look on there and their radar shows everything's clear and their forecast says chances of rain are slim. When I look up from the screen and out the window and see that it looks like nighttime except for the lightening, I know that website's useless.

novice: Check out blogspot. It's free! Plus, you get a GB of picture storage. With all my posts on mine so far, i've used 40MB. So, it will last a while. =)