I wish I would have planted some. I didn't do any bulbs this year and I am just sick over it...Post a pic if you can....

Where are you? I have been looking for crocus but haven't seen them yet. Daffodils are peeking up and Naked Lady foliage is showing too. Also hyacinth.

I am in zone 6b in Adair County.

yep we have some daffodils up about 2-3" now. Near 70 degrees By this weekend. Hope it doesnt begin to trick the fruit trees to start blooming. On another forum people are reporting theirs to be blooming weeks to months early.

Edmond. My Hellebores have flowers already. Crocuses are two inches tall at best. Irises are going like mad. I don't think they ever went dormant this year.

My borage is up. Is that bad?

Kim, It likely isn't good. Is this a plant from last year that never completely froze and died or is it a new volunteer seedling?

Borage is a fairly cold-hardy annual but it can freeze or suffer frost damage when exposed to frost or freezing temperatures, although it also sometimes can withstand freezing temperatures or frost. How much cold a borage plant can tolerate varies a lot and may depend on prior cold exposure. If any borage seedlings sprouted in my garden right now, my feeling would be that they aren't likely to make it to spring without totally freezing or at least suffering major frost or freeze damage.

There are many plants in my garden from last year that haven't yet frozen back. Most of them are half-hardy annuals and the rest are perennials, and the half-hardy annuals I have generally do survive temperatures in the 20s, but often freeze back if we get into the teens. So far this winter, I don't think we've dropped below 21 degrees.

We warmed up really early last winter, with our last freeze here in Love County around the first week in March. I'll be really surprised if we are that lucky this year because we rarely get the same type of winter weather two years in a row. This week's weather will be nice and that can be deceiving---normally we have a lot of cold in February, so I am not going to let this week's temperatures and sunshine trick me into thinking winter is over. It is bad enough that all the plants are acting like it is spring. I feel like winter weather is not done with us yet.

If you can mulch your borage (assuming it is in well-drained soil), then it might make it through the cold. Normally, once you plant borage, you have it forever because it reseeds readily. So, if your current borage plant gets killed by some future cold spell, hopefully more seedlings will pop up after the weather has warmed up a bit more.

Dawn

I'm with Dawn. I still have carrots, greens, and herbs growing in the garden next to the house. Kind of nice!

The borage is in a 3 foot raised bed/metal. They are seeds from last year. There are probably 20 babies. I was meant to have a lot of borage I had seeds didn't know it so I ordered more. Last year it got a slow start but wow when it took off it crowded most herbs out.

They are open flowers now

Borage does get huge. I always plant more than I should and then the borage plants overwhelm whatever is growing too close to them. The bees love the blue flowers though, so I try to always have lots of it for them. I also grow the white-flowered one.

jmichigan, I bet the flowers make it feel like spring! We're still having warm days here, although the nights can get really chilly still. Other than one 24-degree night in this week's forecast, we're still fairly warm for February, but I'm not complaining.

My ornamental alliums, which are in a bed down near the driveway/roadway, are up about 10-12", and normally once the foliage gets that tall, the blooms are not far behind. It seems too early for them, but they're gonna do what they want to do regardless of the calendar. I'm pretty sure the daffodils and Dutch hyacinths that have survived in that same area since around 2000-2001 likely drowned/rotted in last year's 78+" of rain as they are in dense clay. I haven't seen foliage emerge for any of them and normally it would be up by now. Our average annual rainfall is 39", so I think that getting twice that amount was just too much for them. If they are gone, I probably won't replant in that spot but I'll probably plant more daffodils and Dutch hyacinths next fall in sandier soil at the west end of the garden.

It's Groundhog Day and sunny here, so if we had groundhogs in Love County, they'd be seeing their shadows.

Because I said that my daffodils probably drowned in the rain, I noticed yesterday that the foliage of several had popped up out of the ground. Still no foliage of Dutch hyacinths yet.

My fennel bronze is also coming up fast. Just harvested a bunch of broccoli Raab today. I am not sure the best time to grow that stuff but I know it bolts fast in the spring. Of course it was beautiful 1000s of tiny yellow flowers

I've had fennel all winter, both older plants from last year still going strong and newer volunteer ones that sprouted throughout autumn and winter. It hasn't been cold enough to kill them, although when we drop into the lower 20s like we have this morning they sometimes have a little freeze damage on the upper foliage. The garden was full of young fennel, chamomile and catnip volunteers earlier in the week. They may or may not have survived this morning's low temperatures, but even if they froze back, new ones will sprout shortly. The exceedingly warm weather with highs in the 70s over the last couple of weeks made those young volunteers put out lots of tender new growth that this morning's low (22 at our house so far) might have nipped back.

Brocoli raab can be grown at the same times you grow turnips and mustards, to which it is related. Most varieties will bolt after a couple of months, but you can work around that by succession sowing more seeds every couple of weeks so that you always have new plants that are coming along. It is more of a cool-season plant than a warm-season plant, obviously, so you can plant it in August for a fall/winter havest that sometimes will carry over until spring, though it may take succession plantings to cover that long of a time frame.