Wow! Everyone's got roses except me! No buds on anyone yet... leaves yes. Buds? No. But I think this past Sunday was the last of the cold for me. We had a nasty nasty cold storm blow through.. mainly wind (windchill was about 10degs, ambient temp was 25) and snow, but the snow melted almost on contact, so free moisture. I have 3 iris stalks (2 NoIDs, one I can't remember 'cuz I didn't write it down, so I guess it's now a NoID), my purple plum "Thunderchild" & "Newport" are done with flowering, my Profusion crabapple is literally bowing itself over with flowers (need to take pictures of the limbs literally bowing), hyacinth is almost spent, lilacs are just barely starting. Can't wait til I see my first rose! I did notice that my Ring of Fire has practically exploded this year. Last year it was about 8" tall. Right now, it's about a foot & half tall.
Same thing with Picante. Last year she was only about 2' tall at the end. Right now, it's over 3' tall and I really need to prune it! I pruned only like 12 roses last weekend.. and that's because I pretty much had to. Ripped out a 9'x4' section of grass (my very last grass section in my entire lot.. and kept that only for the dog to roll around on, but he couldn't get to it any more due to the roses!) to put in my daylilies that I had ordered. Going to start remulching the back this week if my back will let me.
Got new fabric (don't EVER buy this:
http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/... . It's absolute CRAP.) so need to refabric the sections I screwed up on & put down the new mulch I just bought.
It never ends!!