My garden is 100% not ready. This has been the longest winter ever.. we just had more snow Sunday evening and there's a prediction of more snow this weekend. Luckily, it's the wet sloppy stuff, so, to me, it's just free water. This past month we've gotten over 4" of water from the snows & rain, so I'm not complaining. I'm just getting sick & tired of the cold, though. Well, to me, 30 degrees isn't too cold, but it's cold enough on my plants. I want SPRING!

And with that, here's a start. I planted these on Saturday evening. There's 2 blue delphiniums (they grow so wonderfully here), 2 red salvias (maybe perennial, maybe annual, it's hit & miss w/most of that family) and 2 basket of gold. I'm planning on putting a white columbine in the center. The rest of that bed will be petunias as DH loves petunias. It's too early for petunias, probably 2 weeks I can get 'em in the ground. The bed behind this one w/the red rock has 5 roses & 4 asters. No sign of the asters coming back. On the left side has the Strike It Rich & Lagerfeld, the center has Arizona, & on the right has a Sterling Silver & Golden Masterpiece.

Here's my house flowerbed. This is where all my mini roses go. Please forgive the dead in the baskets.. I just haven't gotten to filling them yet and the petunias I did get froze this weekend. The 3 roses in the back are 3 I got from Burling, which have made it through 2 snow storms like champs. There's a mini in the front surrounded by hyssops, and then there's more delphinium next to those. These grow so well here and I love the true blue!

Here's the delphiniums again. I bought these 3 years ago in $1 pots at Home Depot. Yay! :)

The previous two shots are part of this bed too, but that's the north side (it's shaped like an "L" around my garage). Here's the east side. There's actually 6 mini roses, 3 mums, 3 columbines, 3 hostas, a "red bird in a tree", and a "hummingbird mint" (both a type of hyssop).

These are the only flowers I have that are not transplants. Grape hyacinth. Can't kill it, no matter how hard you try. :)

Here's a rose I got from Cliff @ EuroDesert. This is Heinrich Karsch. It's the only rose I have that is almost fully leafed out. It's a 1-time bloomer, but it's still such a pretty rose. And it weathered the winter wonderfully!

OK, around the house now over to the eastern side. Here's the irises I got from Evey last year. I can't WAIT to see them bloom, they're all in the red family!

This is a rose I got from RU last year. It's tag is buried in the mulch, so I'll have to dig it out. I have no idea who it is, but you can see how many leaves are on it. yay!

This is a new variety of lilac. It's called Dappled Dawn and it's a variegated lilac. It will have steel-blue flowers (probably next year will bloom nicely) and it's tolerant of partial shade!

This is my massive lilac. This bugger is about 12' tall and a good 10' wide. I did trim it last year to try & bush out the bottom. Problem w/lilacs.. they always get leggy. :(

Here's my smaller common lilac in the back. I trimmed this baby down to 4'x4' 3 years ago.. it's probably almost back to 5.5'x6'+. Please forgive the debris & the crappy fence.. I'm in the ongoing process of replacing the whole fence & that's a bag that got blown in from the winds a few days ago & I didn't see it until I snapped the pic.

OK, now for some roses. These are the two I got from the Co-Op a few weeks ago. This is Musicale. He's got lots of little "pimples" (leaf buds) on him, so I'm not worried at all.

Now, Molineux.. I'm worried about this rose. She's not showing any new signs of life. She got (I think) stepped on in transit (the box was crushed badly) and she lost half her canes through breakage. Then, after I put her in the ground, she went further into shock and lost all her leaves. Then we got snows & more snows. You know, I just may have no luck with DA roses.. this is the 3rd DA rose I've tried w/no luck. I'm keeping my fingers crossed & won't pull her until I see her go completely black. But, she is so wiggly right now... her canes have no stiffness. I can't compare w/other Molineux as no one carries that one locally. I'll be so disappointed if she doesn't pull through.

OK, now for some artificial blooms. This is one of the Sterling Silvers that I got. This particular bush will go into my "pond area" once I have it built (eta: June 2010)

Here's another Sterling Silver. I'm planning on putting 4 of these in a semi-circle and, in the center as a focal point, a Pope John Paul. I think that this "pond area" will be in blues and whites.. I love blue & white.

Now, please forgive the foreground as it looks like crap right now. But this is a row of Sterling Silvers. I'm going to have to move the Memorial Day that's in the middle to some other place, but I just really wanted a wall of Sterling Silvers. These babies smelled up my van SOOO much when I brought them home! There's actually 6 SS right there.

This is a strange one. This bucket has like 4 tags on it and, I swear, 2 roses on the same rose bud. I believe one of them is Cherish and the other is Wild Blue Yonder. This picture is not true to color.. looks a lot more fuchsia IRL.

Here's a closeup of the one I think is WBY. These are starting to fade a little, which is why they're more red today than when I got them on Saturday. Saturday, they were fuchsia.

Toni:

Lovely photos, and I don't mind the bag. Why don't those things show up until we snap the lens? Here, too.

Molineux may make it, just give it more time. Mine has proven to be very hardy. Came back after all the cold weather this winter. In fact, I was worried I'd lose some of my newly planted roses, but not a single one perished, although some of them are still very small. I'm a new rosarian and there are some I know I'll be moving around once I learn more about them.

And, speaking of which, here's Cherish. I am not a pink fan, but this thing smells SOOOOOO heavenly...