I got out into the garden to look for other signs of spring. I must say that the few signs I am seeing are not exactly what I was hoping for. These hellebores are not looking so healthy. We have had such abnormal highs and then lows in temperatures I am afraid they just don't know what to do. These look pale and peaked. I don't know what to do for them. I hope they snap out of what ever is ailing them.
There are buds coming on the old lilac. Actually this bush is not old but the bush that I got this start from is old. It is a white lilac that grows in the garden where I work. No one knows how old this lilac is but the neighbors have lived next door to it for 50 years and they said it was there when they moved in. The building that houses the shop I work in is over 150yrs old. I wonder if the lilac is original to the place. I guess we will never know. My little piece of the lilac is just 4 years old. It had its first blossom last year. It was wonderful. I can hardly wait until it get full of the scented white blossoms. Maybe I will have more this year.
There are daffodils peeking out of the ground. Even they have a sickly pale green cast to their sprouts. I can sort of understand that because it hasn't been very sunny despite what the picture is indicating.
These are the beginnings of some hyacinths that are showing signs of awakening. Actually they look normal. This is a good sign.
I mosied over to check out the forsythia. I wondered after several days of above normal temps if there might be a bloom or two that had been coaxed into the warm winter air. Not a single one. There are buds. The most interesting thing I see are some galls. They are in the uppermost reaches of this bush. I wonder what kind of bug has made them there?? This is where I usually have lots of house sparrow nests. This past summer I kept the House Sparrow nest torn out to try to force themto go nest at some other garden. They kept attacking the House Wrens and sticking their heads into the nest box trying to force out the wrens. I just couldn't tolerate them doing this. So the eviction began. They were persistent but I was more so. They finally gave up on this spot and built high in the apple tree. Not high enough though. I threw them out of there. Then they got the message and went into the side lot and found a tree I couldn't climb and built. They did leave the Wrens alone the rest of the summer. Anyway...does anyone have an idea of what type of insect might make these galls? I was guessing some type of wasp. What do you think?
Tonight the wind is howling so it is possible I will have snow pictures for you tomorrow. I would rather think about spring.
Do you remember the galls I told you I saw on the Forsythia?? They are quite different than the above gall. They are very lumpy and coarse looking. While the gall above is bumpy but more smooth in texture. The colors vary great too. As you can see the forsythia is budding but no blooms yet. Marvin who seems to know lots about nature and is so kind to impart his knowledge told me that the one on the Forsythia is a Phomopsis Gall. It is a type of fungus. He also told me about this site where you can read about this gall and many other garden maladies. I found here that the creepy aggressive awful grass I wrote about here is a Wild Bermuda Grass. What this site says about it is terrifying to me. It sounds like it will indeed be a fight to keep it out of my flower beds. Sigh~~
There is some weird fungus growing on the trunk of the huge Autumn Olive that we cut down. I was checking on the log planter to see if the little starts I planted in it appeared to be surviving the winter and spotted this fungus. It is a pretty color and texture. Almost velvety yet at the base it looks jelly-like.
I felt very fortunate to have found the bagworms haning on the cedars. I only found three of them. I wonder if there will be more?? You usually don't just find three. We haven't had any bagworms for some time. I hope it is the last of them. I picked them off and threw them away.
I just couldn't resist showing you this fuzzy wuzzy bud of the Magnolia inour garden. The tree is full of them. I hope they don't all get burned off with this cold.
There are still a few of the seedheads of the Clematis 'Ramona'. Iwonder if a person could winter sow them? Has anyone tried this before? 
We are battening down the hatches today. We are under a Winter Storm Watch. We could get as much as 2-6 inches of snow, rain, sleet etc beginning this afternoon. The Weather Men are always making these announcements and often they aren't near as severe as forcast. So we will just have to wait to see what happens this afternoon. 
