I've had very little daylight to garden for the last few months, and it's a diabolical mess, which is very disincentivising. I tell myself that I'm just going to tidy up one specific thing, or clean/fill the bird feeders, and then once I've got going, I get drawn in. Using this method I managed to get 5 of my final 6 roses planted on sunday, which was a small boost.

I had the exact same problem this past Fall. We had glorious, warm weather - sunny and lovely. I didn't go in the garden, didn't do the things I should have, nothing. Let the rampant deer eat roses I could have protected, etc. What woke me up was in Nov and Dec, when it rained 20+ inches. So happy. The garden was so happy! It did not rain in Jan, but by then everything had woken up from the rain (which is really the beginning of our Spring). We had sunny weather all Jan. The tea and china roses started to bloom a LOT, the bulbs started to come up, and the trees are leafing out, etc. What really got me out there is that all of my hellebores started to bloom, underneath the old ratty leaves from last year, and you could barely see the flowers. It was so embarrassing - I went out and dealt with the three areas where we have a lot of hellebores growing. They looked so much better with last year's old leaves pruned off, and of course I had to weed at the same time, which was easy after the rain. Woke me up and I have been out there 2-3 days a week, tackling one small area at a time. That way I get some positive feedback. My DH tackled our little side garden, which has a circular gravel path around a circular bed in the middle of which is a standing bird bath. You could barely see the gravel path, as there were so many weeds growing on it. He removed the old gravel and re-graveled the entire path. After that of course I had to weed the central bed, and am now working on the beds all around there. It is so easy once you start!

Jackie

My experience has been like Jackie's: the rains of hope. Until the rains came, there was little reason to get excited about the garden; the prospect was another year of drought-dreary, singed leaves and paltry flowers and watching long-established plants looking worse and worse and even dying in unirrigated areas. Once everything greened up (and the weeds given new life...), I've felt renewed energy, too.

Until the rains came, couldn't even get a shovel in the ground, much less fling it! Digging now possible, I have replaced dead natives on the hill, re-done one of the rows of Tayberry (had suffered badly also from the drought), put in some new regal lily bulbs and a couple dozen wonderful little perennials plants (Santolina impressa, Salvia muirii, Scabiosa caucasia "Fama", and more!) and started a bunch of seeds under lights in the laundry room -- a virtual blast of energy compared to last year.

Definitely, inspiration needs to be arrive and it doesn't come out of nowhere. But it sounds like it's nearly on your doorstep, Campanula.

Daughter's birthday this weekend so we are all convening at the woods - always good as I can crack the whip at the youth and put them to work. The last couple of times I have been there were fleeting - the puppies awful mishap on an ant's nest cut short our stay (the howling and yelling as she tried to bite her way out of the truck windows) so I hopefully, I can scoot around and see what bulbs survived (I have a very dim hope that the camassias are still there but maybe the leucojum and aconites). I did also plant 20 or so roses and the Paul's HB, our first woodland rose, is coming into its 'leap year'. There is the new willow bed to look forward to...blimey, am getting stirred up at the thought of it all.

You West=-Coasters have been through a torrid time - so glad to hear precious rain has fallen on thirsty ground. The greening after rain is astonishing - exactly the sort of release which sparks a seed into growth, fires the same impulse in us.

Camp...totally off topic, but I'm soooooooooooo glad you're here! lol. We've been missing you in the rose forums.

John

Campanula, it is lovely to see you again on gardenweb.

I've been oddly lazy this month. I should have transplanted the 'Rene d'Anjou' which was sold to me from a nursery as a remontant Moss rose named 'Reine d'Anjou' three years ago, it has never rebloomed, so I will move it to the Oldest Garden Rose rosebed, from the "pride of place' space by my front door. I've replaced that king or queen rose, with a few 'Marie Pavie' on each side of the sidewalk. a friend gave me 3 bareroot H.T.s as a thank you gift, and they're still in their bags and they've sprouted leaves in my living room. They may remain there by a large box of canned cat food through summer the way I'm feeling. I'd rather drink tea while looking at the superb photos of roses in Martin and Rix's book, , and dream of roses instead of engaging with my shovel.

Lux.

campanula good to see you I have the opposite problem...too hot and garden shrinking into a dust bowl as precious water is needing to be doled out sparingly. Coincidentaly I also have a new puppy...well about to turn one so I can relate. Hope to see you back at "the circus" soon as we need all the rational ones we can get.

I can empathize, Camp! Nothing but frigid cold and gray days here too. We have a good 2 feet of snow cover so I can't even see much of the roses sticking up around the yard. I have projects inside the house I could, should, be doing but who has the motivation or energy to do them? Instead I sit here on line and dream about my garden, shop for roses and visit this place. As I say, good thing February is a short month!

What works for me is to clear an area and then plan what to do with it. Nothing gets me in motion like empty space. Sometimes its boring to do the cleaning and clipping all the time even when it desperately needs to be done.

You would have gotten some amusement out of seeing me pruning from a chair. I dropped a big piece of tree limb on my foot and I'm lucky my foot wasn't broken. But it hurt very badly and I couldn't use it at all. That wasn't going to stop me from loading the green waste cans however and I used a resin chair as a walker and hopped along with my pruners on the chair seat dragging a trash barrel along as I moved. Talk about slow pruning. Sometimes I stood between roses on one foot or with my knee resting on the chair seat while I worked. Sister dragged all the clippings to the curb. Maybe I even did a better job this year because I was down at eye level and really took my time.

Can I ask you about sweet peas? If I train them one to a post and tie them up how far apart should the poles be. Also, why do you cut the tendrils off. One last question is have you ever tried winding them around a circular cage to keep the vines from being so tall?

I like hearing about all the things you have done in the wood and your plans for it. Enjoy your puppy and I'm sure you will have plenty of flowers this spring regardless.

Blimey, Kitty - here I am moaning listlessly while you are being heroic WHILE INJURED. I need no excuse to slack off with a book and should I have the misfortune to damage myself in some way, rest assured I would take to my couch and milk it for all it was worth.

Sweetpeas - at least the autumn sown ones are flopping about in their polystyrene cups. Over the years, I have followed all the appropriate advice, nicking and soaking seeds, using (expensive) deep roottrainers, removing the first shoots, removing tendrils, tying, retying, picking daily, spraying the flowers to ensure setting...and can state, with absolute confidence that NONE of this is necessary. If you threw a seed onto the ground and walked away, you would find a perfectly strong and floriferous stem, scrambling into the light. I now simply sow them, transfer to ground in Mar/April and let them scramble up a stretch of netting (or chickenwire, or canes, string, shrubs). If you want to pick strong, straight and long stems, this is when removing the tendrils is helpful as they will pull the flower stalks into distorted shapes. However, the downside to that is that you do need to tie them in continually, like tomatoes...so if you merely want a sheet of colour, you do not need to bother removing the tendrils. Also, professional sweetpea growers (for sale or exhibition) do plant the peas one to a cane, around 1foot apart, in order to give the plants room to grow without tangling in to each other and when the peas reach the top of the canes, they untie them, lie them down and move the whole lot a couple of canes to the side (so you have all the older stems along the ground, then retie them (I have never gone that far!)

Mostly, I would treat them like beans, planting each pot of 4-5 in a richly fed hole ()lots of compost and even some horse) and leave them to make their own way upwards, picking as often as you can...and this is always what stymies me in the end - failing to keep on top of dead-heading. So, you could sow some now, some more in a month and another lot as late as May - pick with abandon and don't worry too much about tying and training - even short stems make lovely posies and they smell terrific.

The winding thing will work - even tried a hanging basket one year (not so successful) - you can also leave them to scrabble about on the ground or down a bank, a bit like clematis, if you fancied.

My mom had glorious sweet peas when I was a child, but we not longer get enough cool weather in central Florida to have the massive bloom she had on her vines. I've tried over and over, but now have given up on them. She would have huge bowls of them sitting all over the house for the several months they were in bloom, and the scent was to die for.

Thank you. I understand now. I did not have any luck with hanging baskets either. I think they want more roots and soil. They do not want warm soil a d that's what you get here with hanging pots in the sun.