Oh… father winter is here and will stay for a few more months. I’m watching gardening shows to make up for real gardening outside. I’m actually watching “The Victory Garden”. The host of the show is definitely an Aussie. He is touring the San Francisco botanical. He is going through all sorts of dark foliage plants, however since it’s filmed in SF, there aren’t many that will survive the midwest winter. I’m looking for ideas for the garden next spring.
Parsnips from my vegetable patch… 
three normal looking parsnip and one alien parsnip!
Well, it’s been raining heavily for the last two days. Most of my flowers were washed out or flopped over. I cut of a bunch of snapdragons to make bouquet and try and remove the tangle of a mess from the yard. My tomatoes are doing well and my green bell peppers are starting to flower. I bought a bell pepper for 0.59 cents this morning. It would be nice to be able to get free peppers and tomatoes from the yard. As for the strawberries, i am tempted to just remove them next year. The birds get to them before I do and it’s getting very invasive in my vegetable patch. I’ll have a few more months to think about it before having to remove them. As for the Hilshiem raspberries, they are doing fine. A little small right now but I think they’ll flourish next year. 
It’s Easter Sunday and for Illinois (Zone 5), most gardeners will consider today the official start of Spring. My daffodils are blooming and I took the opportunity to take some pictures. The soil is now soft enough to work so I planted some Gladiolus, Oriental Lilies and Irises. Those should be good models for my photography. I am learning to use the SLR that I bought last year for Christmas. More pictures of Spring Flowers to come… stay tuned.
Jim and I woke up this morning to this!!!! It looks really pretty but devastating for my poor roses that are starting to have new buds. By about 2pm, the snow melted away leaving behind a swampy looking backyard.
You can always count on crocus to indicate “Spring is HERE!”
My little flower at Uldale Pl
When we were in NZ, the house came with landscape maintenance. I couldn’t do much gardening but the landlord was fine with me putting in flower shrub at side of the house. Flowers just seems to thrive in NZ. I missed the well groomed gardens full of roses and pretty little flower borders. The wild flowers by the road such as flaxes and lupines stand tall and flourish without much help. I wonder how’s Tessa’s and Annette’s garden did this year…?
Hotpokers at the corner of Uldale and Penrudock Rise
It feels like spring was a decade ago. I can’t wait to get my hands and feet dirty digging dirt in Spring. I’ve started some seedlings in my basement with a couple rows of growing lights. I have about 16 Snapdragon seedlings, 2 Rosemary, 1 cherry tomato and 2 cayenne pepper plants. Living in Illinois, I’m going to have to wait until after Easter for most of my plants to survive outside… oh so many moons away!!
The Peoria Dispatch