Hi,

after a very wet winter spring came back to my garden...for a few days at least. The nights are still freezing cold and I'm glad that the hosta have decided to wait a little longer with their comeback.

But the pots are clean and waiting for the things to come...

It was a lot of work, I had to repot nearly every plant because the constant tripple in winter had driven the plants so deep into the pot that I had to shake them out and add nearly 5cm of new soil. 500 l already gone I'm desperately waiting for more, but in times of Corona some things take a little longer. Which in a kind is a blessing, because sometimes it is good to slow down. The world is peaceful around here, all the noise by traffic and planes reduced to a minimum and the animals seem to enjoy their lives much more than normal.

My thoughts are with all the people who really suffer in this pandemic and can not retreat to a sunny garden...

I will show a few random pictures, mostly still empty pots, but the sky is blue and the promise of better times is to see...

Two parcels have arrived and it was so nice to unpack them after this long winter...

Karin..I hope both of us have warmer temperatures soon..I had some wonderful days but now we're having a cold spell..my plants were fine today but tonight is colder..#1 First Frost..#2 Golden Tiara..small but on the way..#3 Valentine bleeding heart..#4 Korean Spice Viburnum..that one tiny flower had a fabulous fragrance..

Where do you live Karin? I thought I had a lot of pots (I do but a lot of them are empty). I am in the Atlanta area and we were at slightly below 32 this morning. The theoretical safe date for us to plant in the ground is April 15 but I always like to wait until May 1 for tender plants and moving my horde of houseplants outside.

Nichols, my Korean spice bush (Viburnum carlesii) has been over for a couple or weeks now or longer (I like the smell but it is too short a bloom period - trying to propagate it now) but I do have Chinese viburnum in full bloom, old fashioned snowball almost in full bloom, and double file viburnums in full bloom.

Chinese viburnum - two years old.

Hosta June

Walmart grab bag - not too shabby for $5 (there is its twin in another spot)

double file viburnum - the mother plant died and now I have a forest of them (about 7 daughter plants that need thinning). This is one of the daughter plants.

cross vine 'Tangerine Beauty' is a bit of a beast but I like it.

Encore azalea 'Autumn Twist' with two different branches or did the grower put two different plants in the same pot?

Empress Wu is just getting started.

Dream Queen

one of the Japanese Maples in its spring glory

Don't remember its name. One of the Tiara series?

hc, I'm in the middle of Germany, 400 m above sea level and the hosta in my garden are always late compared with those of my friends in lower regions of Germany. I keep my hosta in pots only, it is too dry in summer to plant them in the ground.

Ann, here the frost seems to be over, but the damage is done and a lot of hosta will look ugly for a few weeks.

I have been in the garden early and took a few new pcitures. I love this time of the year!

It's time for my cacti and succulents to go outside

Queen of the Seas

Valley's Frozen Rum

Whiskey Sour

Fulda

Ivory Coast

Haworthia

My big aloe

a spring planter

So lovely to see everything starting a new. All your succulents/cactus how do you overwinter them? I am still waiting here in Michigan, glad I didn't have too much popping up it was 23 fahrenheit last night.

The Lancifolias are coming up. Some are fairy rings. This won't show later, so I do nothing.

Creeping Jenny is yellowing up too.

Grass is greening up finally in non-hosta sections of the garden..

Beth, I have a plant room for my cacti. I keep them inside from end of September until April. But this way I have fun with plants all winter long :-)

Karin..I didn't notice anything really terrible in your pics!..cities north of me did have snow but I escaped!..but it's chilly..I just heard on TV our temperatures are "well below" average for mid April..I see June pips from the window which seem fine..I haven't been out to see the ones that were leafed out..

'well below' ...it's crazy, yesterday it was so cold that I worked outside with two sweaters and today it is so warm I can go out with a T-Shirt. I'm not made for such extreme changes...

But it's good to hear that you did not have snow!

I went out to look..not bad..I took one pic of Pineapple Upside Down Cake..walking along I glanced at everything and I saw slight changes..they're not as perky..the wavy edges should be smoother..but in a few weeks maybe they'll be better..

a few days ago..

hc..I wish my fragrant viburnum (tagged Judd) lasted longer too..but I love the form and it was a great addition to my garden..it looks good by my shed..my other viburnums bloom less than yours :-(

Nichols,

I am about ready to explode with GW and their glitches - HAHA?

I bought a V. 'Mohawk' at our last house with all the great advertising except it turned out to be a dud for me. I think after several years of puny blooms and then they were over in a week, I asked myself why am I keeping this around? I cannot remember what I replaced it with but this was a very disappointing, highly advertised plant.

My camellias blow the Korean spice bush out of the water when it comes to blooms and they bloom around the same time.

this was taken the same day as the camellias above (yeah, it still has a few days left on it) with the magnolia in the background.

While it will have oodles of blooms they are not all that big.

Scarlet Storm flowering quince is a great bloomer but seems to pop up all over the place.

R.L. Wheeler is my youngest camellia but it is growing fast too.

another camellia that is about 14 feet tall

this camellia blooms too early and so half the blooms are blasted by cold weather in January and February.

hc..I'm so jealous of your camellias!..it's too cold here but if I ever live in a warmer climate (my dream) I'll have some!..I've seen rave reviews on plants that I think are duds..I prefer an opinion from a real gardener..not a sales catalogue right?..the technology on this site is dysfunctional..I get notifications from 2 day old comments..

I give up on GW! Gee whiz. I try to put ten photos in all to be deleted along with any message. Then I tried again with only 3 photos and that didn't go either. Let's try one this time. This is for Karin - I like your C&S as I used to be a big fan of them until one winter I gave up - too much time, energy to move them indoors and the space I had indoors was poor back then. I left them outside all winter and probably lost 95% of everything. I think I had two survivors.

Anyway, I had a greenhouse at the last house and the C&S loved it.

YAY, one photo worked! I will add two more at this time.

Yay, it worked. A few more photos this time.

Another success - last 3 photos to finish out 10. I need to convince my wife I need an extra large greenhouse.

hc..Karin will know and appreciate the C&S but I want to say I love the agave? in the color coordinated pot (#6)..we feel your frustration with GW..it's evil Lol..

I'm convinced that you need a greenhouse..and I want one too!

Did someone mention Korean Spice Viburnum? Here's mine today after last night's freezing weather with no protection. It started blooming over a week ago, but it is short lived. That's why I hope for berries and nice fall colors to prolong the interest. I don't remember this one getting as colorful as others and since it's so early, generally don't get berries, but I think it helps the next one that blooms to get berries (carlesii)

I can smell it standing above it on our front lawn. My first Viburnum to bloom. Wish my Hosta handled the cold as well. Here's the view from above almost a week ago.

I grew some Camellias when I lived in California on the north side of our house. I liked them, but they seemed to get too much green growth that started to cover up the blooms and some of the blossoms would fall before opening. Perhaps that's just the variety I owned. I'm sure it wasn't fertilizer as I rarely fertilized anything. The Camellia collection at the Huntington is amazing. Ironically, I had a couple greenhouses (plus a mini) in California on less land than I own here in Ohio. But now I can grow Peonies!

Thanks Nichols for the comments. Yeah, I really like the camellias but wished they would bloom just a little later so they wouldn't get blasted by sub freezing temps. That's part of gardening though.

The agaves can get to be giants so I try to go with smaller ones today.

Here is my big one today with wicked teeth - A. bovicornuata with lots of tree leaf debris from last year.

I really like this agave as the leaves are soft and only has the spine on the very end of each leaf. I got two handfuls of babies back in 2009 from a guy in Tampa when I visited his house for begonias. I kept four for this bigger pot and have given away several over the years.

a cutting tray for succulents with a couple of agaves.

I like variegated agaves when I can find them but not at the price some charge on eBay

more agave cuttings in perlite under lights (a greenhouse would be like magic for these)

the deadly spines of A. bovicornuta

steve..love your viburnum..mine smells great but yours would be better..you have more blooms..I'm resigned to it..everyone has more blooms on everything than I do Lol..I had 2 camellias in CA..one white one pink..no fragrance..I had buds drop too!..

hc..I know I'd hurt myself on those spikes..I don't like my pointy ended ash seeds..and they're not as sharp as the agaves..I have one aloe..it's not pretty..unless I buy some lights no C&S would be happy here..I like succulents but I need to stick with part shade and shade plants..I should get a sansevieria..a bold dramatic look that could live here..

hc...

wonderful succulents, agave grow big and then the problems with carrying them start. Actually I gave my biggest away last summer. It was impossible to bring it in anymore.

My favourites are aloe hybrids, haworthia and mammillaria. A greenhouse would be a dream...

ann, sansevieria are also nice, I have a few different ones which can stay inside on the window sills. And they tolerate a lot of shade as long as I'm careful with water :-)

The viburnum are also nice and I wish I could grow a camelia, but the garden is too small and so I stay with my few acers and a sambucus nigra between the hosta.

Orange Dream just starts to show off...

Karin..I like sansevieria..I love the simple shape..they would fit inside the house so much easier than my alocasia Lol..as soon as we can shop I'll keep my eyes open for one..🌿

Ann, they would really be better for inside than the alocasia. I have only one left, the rest I gave away, it is too much trouble to keep them inside in winter :-)

Karin..Lol!!..I love them but they are VERY inconvenient..will it be about a month (maybe 3 weeks) before yours goes out?..it will for me..

I want my kitchen table back! I just wait until the trees outside are fully leafed out, otherwise there will be not enough shade for the alocasia.

I understand!..it's kind of an old wives tale where I live..Mother's day is used as the date that's it's safe to put plants out..I think I have shade by then too..

Alocasia/Colocasia is another favorite. Japanese maples - check.

I cut this big one back hard 2 years ago in front of the house. Couldn't see the windows due to it. Here it is a day or two ago.

What it looked like in 2018 - the big prostrate deodar cedar was fairly big too. I had been trimming both for years but later that year (before Xmas I cut the JM hard and the cedar back some)

Dec 3, 2018 but I wasn't finished yet.

finished in Feb, 2019

July last year

Some JM do well but one that doesn't is the Full Moon.

This was last week

reds just don't photograph well, do they?

I noticed several of mine are developing seeds this year

Full Moon is lovely with new leaves but it doesn't do well in the heat of summer.

hc, that kind of overwhelms me...fantastic plants!

I never cut a japanese marple. I have a red one that gets really wide, but I'm too afraid to cut...

I love it in fall

Well just lost that whole reply! Gee Whiz!!

Beautiful red JM there Karin! Love that red.

I cut my first JM back at our last house as it was too close to the house so it needed a haircut most every year to keep it from scraping the house and then a drastic cut when we had the house painted.

This was my first JM - a Bloodgood for $15 in 1984, gallon size. I thought my dad was going to blow a gasket at that much money for such a small plant. HA! Anyway you cannot see the cuts on this picture.

You can see the cuts the next year but you can't see the top of the tree in this photo. I wished I had more photos from that time but I was still in the state of mind of film days.

One of my favorites at the previous house was a short but wide red JM in front of the greenhouse.

another view of it in front of the small pond that my daughter helped me dig and put in.

At my mother's house in 2016 with my grandson as my model (he was 7 then and is small for his age).

A dark red JM

a green JM under the shade of a huge pecan tree

and behind a big blue hosta

a Southern Magnolia (M. grandiflora) bloom with my hand holding it.

A Limelight I got my dad a few years earlier that I hacked back hard the previous fall. This was late May, 2016

and how it looked 3 months later in late August.

I had no idea you could hack back JMs so ruthlessly. I'm still waiting for mine to get bigger, lol. Orange Dream is a tough one to photograph well, but you captured it. It is a fast grower for me. I planted a 1 gallon, 2 foot tall tree in 2017 and its already over 6 feet tall and I pruned it back a little last year. Loving all of the other pictures too. My wife is the C&S grower in the family, but she lacks the obsessive gene.

Karin, hc and steve..what fun pictures..it's raining and gloomy..what a treat to see your beautiful plants!..

I've seen hc's maple pruning pics on another post..they shocked me then and they shocked me today!..I had no idea maples would recover from such a drastic pruning..mine are pretty much unpruned..if I have a damaged branch I'll cut that..that's about it..

my niece and her family were going to Florida in March..I asked her to bring me a Mojito bulb..she said "I'm sure we'll be in some stores..I'll find one"..I sent her screenshots..my plan was in place..then coronavirus became serious..it was obvious my niece should cancel the trip..she did..it was a joke between us..I'd say "I think you should still go"...she'd say "yeah Walmart is open even if we can't go out for dinner or to the beach" Lol..someday I'll get a Mojito..

I've been outside nearly all day, dividing and bringing out plants. It feels good to have managed everything on my plan...but don't ask my back...

Two eyes of my Francee sport looked more like Francee and so I decided to separate them. They are both smaller than Francee, but the left one has a wider margin and wavy leaves.

The biggest part of my Mammillaria collection is outside now. They will stay a few weeks on this shelf, well protected from the sun. With all the smog gone the sun is burning more...

I love this old Mammillaria hahniana, it looks like Chewbaca :-)

I hope the barbers are allowed to reopen soon, otherwise I will look like Chewie too...

Climax looks like stuck somewhere in the middle...

And he enjoys his life in my garden, but my own cat is not amused...

As every year I'm amazed how quickly everything unfolds around the garden. Seems to be a race for the best places:-)

A few pictures from yesterday...and we finally had rain tonight, that will help a lot :-)

I did this little project with my rusted boxes yesterday

Looking good Karin! You are right on how fast things unfurl and put out new growth in just a few weeks. It is semi-cold here today - 44 F and may get to 60. I moved a lot of my bigger pots of houseplants Friday to start the great migration. They will have to tolerate cooler temps and lots of rain but most will start looking wonderful in a couple of weeks.

I think we may be a week or two ahead of you but I still have some hostas coming up while most are up and unfurled.

Asian Jasmine 'Summer Sunset' has a new flush of leaves. There is a sprig of 'Snow 'N' Summer' climbing up the urn.

Mailbox with annual phlox and fringed pinks in bloom with my dog pulling me until the phone was tilted.

One of my very few Irises in bloom 3 days ago.

Giantland Golden Goddess my oldest daughter got me for Father's Day last year.

Grancy Grey-beard is blooming with a light fragrance.

Looks like my other yellow azalea died this winter (chipmunk eating the roots?) but this one is doing pretty good.

and most of my clematises are in bloom

It is so good to see all the gardens coming to life.

Karin and hc..I don't have the right conditions (or the knowledge!) to grow your unique plants..but I love your pics and seeing the gardens that both of you have created..

hc, that grancy greybeard looks very interesting. I just checked and it is available here in Germany. Maybe I will give it a try. And the Giantland Golden Goddess makes me a little envious.

Ann, your conditions may hinder you growing some plants, but I do not think it is a problem of knowledge :-)