with lots of beautiful photo's and wonderful information as well.

Sharon, what a great story about YOU and I love all your favorite flowers

Larry, your articles are always so fun to read and you photo's just stunning.

NO CLUE on the mystery flower

Thanks for those nice comments, Vicki. Sorry I was tardy in responding. I'm trying to be outside in the garden on top of everything else I've been doing this winter, and time slips away much faster than I'd like. I've decided to cut my online time, but I'll continue to respond the my mail.

No worries at all Larry - same here - the nice weather and gardening has come quickly and gardens don't wait.

Love the article as always! Like in your photos, my moth orchid and some others are happily in bloom, well the moth orchid has been blooming straight away since I got it last Christmas :biggrin:. The latest that did finally fully bloom was my purplish noid Paphiopedilum or Lady Slipper orchid. Got 3 orchids during an orchid show last Feb and they are still in bloom as well:



Outdoors..ah, I am getting a 2nd wave of poplar catkins littering my yard and coating my plants with more to come ugh!

More on the trees, waiting for one more shakedown from the winds:


Found this other young tree in our common area finally getting her turn to awaken and bloom:

Good to hear from you, tarev! Great orchid pics.

The messiest trees we contend with here are maples (their seeds end up all over the vegetable garden and in the flower beds) and cottonwood seeds (their fluffy parachutes get stuck in all our screens).

Is that a crabapple in bloom? Most of the ones in our area are just starting to get colored buds, but some white ones are blooming already--waaay early. If we don't get a frost, our growing season will have been extended by a full month, something I've never experienced in all my years of gardening.

Dogwoods are blooming here!!! A month early, of course.
Love dogwoods.

Love the dogwoods, Sharon! Almost makes me homesick for Alabama. I remember how those dogwoods in the Alabama forests lit them up while the rest of the trees were still mostly bare. Alas, dogwoods are only marginally hardy this far north. No one around here has been able to keep one growing for more than a couple of years. Yet, only 30 miles down the road in Iowa City, they flourish. Go figure!

If this warming trend keeps up, you might have them pretty soon, Larry.

I'm already making mental notes of Zone 6 perennials I'd like to try.