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I forgot to say that it is prime time here for removing weeds around the perennials that die back to the ground. We sprayed weed killer a few weeks ago, and now we are raking out the dead weeds, just as things like daylilies are starting to peek their leaves up. It’s also time to weed whack the liriope, because the new growth will be starting.
Around here in zone 8, Valentine’s Day is when you hard prune the roses.
I’m in zone 8a. It is a new experience after living in 5. My English bluebells are up, but not close to blooming yet. And my well loved violets are just showing new fresh growth. These bloom about the same time as my blue rhodies, which is a happy accident. But that will be inna few weeks yet.
In the PNW, I have many hellebores blooming in many colors plus doubles. The snowdrops and hepatica are blooming also. The daffodils are up but won’t bloom until March.
My garden chores, if it isn’t raining like it has been since forever, is to clean up rotted plant matter, rake beds of leaves and light pruning of trees. We also have to move several trees to a drier spot as because of so much rain, their roots are in danger of rotting due to the constant water logged soil. I got permission from a large landowner to dig native ferns to replant in our woods. Plus, am ordering some more native plants like dogwood, ninebark and vine and Douglas maple to plant.
In the next few weeks, I will start peas, lettuce, and spinach in my polyhouse so this really means Spring is on the way, hooray!
Blooming now are the heathers, pieris, hellebore, rosemary shrubs, snow drops, crocuses, perennial allysum, primulas.
The flowers of the haskap berry shrubs and the grape hyacinths are just starting to open up. Everything else that comes from a bulb, rhizome or tuber of some kind has about 5 or so inches of green growth peeking above ground but flower spikes have no open blooms yet, just closed buds. I can barely wait for the tulips to bloom this year because last autumn I put a whole bunch of frilly multi-coloured parrot tulip bulbs in the ground and I'm all excited to see what they will be like!
pics of parrot tulips --> https://www.google.ca/search?q=multi...w=1120&bih=583
As far as yard and garden work is concerned all I've been doing lately is cleaning up, pruning dead stuff off, weeding and prepping the flower beds to put more plants and seeds in at the end of this month. Temps are still ranging from 0C at night up to 10C (around 50F) on the (few) sunniest/warmest days but the ground and ambient air temps is still rather a bit too wet and cold yet for putting much in the way of new live plants into the ground.
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Zone 8b San Jose, CA, grape hyacinths blooming in container, freesias have sent out flower stalks but not yet blooming, and aptenia (baby sun rose succulent) is actually blooming a little even though it needs major cleaning up of dead leaves. I just have a container garden on a balcony.
..... And I’ve got to figure out how to remove a too tall Shasta daisy that seems permanently welded to the earth.....
I made the mistake of planting some shastas in full sun locations where they turned into heavy, uncontrollable giant monsters 8 or more feet tall and all terrorizing and invading all other plants in their vicinities.
Some part shade/part dappled sun locations I put shastas in were okay and those plants are doing fine, not overgrown and are being respectful to their neighbor plants. But the monstrous ones I put in the wrong (full sun) places were a pain in the .... ahem ..... to get out of there. I was successful in getting two out of the ground by digging their enormous rootballs out intact and relocated those plants. That was more than a job and half to do and left me exhausted, so the other ones I ended up hacking up all of them into little pieces with the shovel just to get the roots chopped up and out of the ground. I will NEVER put shastas in full sun again unless they are confined in containers I can move around.
I made the mistake of planting some shastas in full sun locations where they turned into heavy, uncontrollable giant monsters 8 or more feet tall and all terrorizing and invading all other plants in their vicinities.
Some part shade/part dappled sun locations I put shastas in were okay and those plants are doing fine, not overgrown and are being respectful to their neighbor plants. But the monstrous ones I put in the wrong (full sun) places were a pain in the .... ahem ..... to get out of there. I was successful in getting two out of the ground by digging their enormous rootballs out intact and relocated those plants. That was more than a job and half to do and left me exhausted, so the other ones I ended up hacking up all of them into little pieces with the shovel just to get the roots chopped up and out of the ground. I will NEVER put shastas in full sun again unless they are confined in containers I can move around.
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Oh, I agree. I am thinking of getting a mattock and chopping them up. Mine are planted in full.sun. They are monsters.
I split a daylily into 6, and got them planted. I still have an even bigger one to tackle. It felt good to be out in the sun and play in the dirt.
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With 2 ft of snow still on the ground, it hit 15 below zero here last night....I think it even killed the rocks in my rock garden. 
