Two of my favorite plant farms in the area open for the season this week. Time to do some browsing:) Hoping to find some David Variety and some other plants that are already blooming to lure in the early hummingbirds.I'll have to bring them in at night for quite a while though. This is the start of my favorite time of the year.

Lisa

Lake Country
Southern Wisconsin
USDA Zone 5b
heat zone 4/5
sunset zone 41
http://thehummingbirdgarden.blogspot.com/

Sometimes you have to turn to Old Man Winter and say: 'enough already damn it!'

I made my annual trek to the fuchsia nursery this morning...nearly froze my fanny off. The temp was in the upper 30's (F.) and it rained from time to time. I saw 2 cars driving around with snow on them...folks that had come down from a little higher elevation.

I cut back on my buying this year...1 boxful instead of 2 or 3. I was happy to find some good starts of the upright red fuchsia named 'Mary'...one of my hummers' favorites. I also got enough starts of the darker red variety named 'Marinka' (trailing) to plant 2 hanging baskets. That is also a big fave with my hummers. I got a few unusal cultivars and some basket stuffer plants, too.

With that start, I went to another local nursery & picked up a new hummingbird feeder, the Birdscapes 12 oz. 4-port model with built-in ant moat. That's not an important feature for my area, but the 12 oz. size should be good for my limited number of birds and the glass container is rather narrow...won't hide the birds sitting on the other side. Price was also a consideration...about $5 less than the Perky Pets model I was considering. While there, I resisted temptation to buy a number of plants, but settled for cilantro seeds and a dwarf pink canna 'Bronze Rosever' and the grape purple dahlia 'Thomas Edison'. They had all their packaged bulbs marked 1/2 off. A few years ago I bought the same packaged purple dahlia from another nursery and it bloomed yellow...not special! Maybe I'm a fool to buy another one...same bulb company - VanBloem Gardens. I think I'll email the bulb company and tell them I'm trying their bulbs just once more...that they will hear from me if I don't get the advertised dahlia this time.







Patrick
USDA Zone 8b
Heat Zone 3
Sunset Zone 5
SeaTac, WA...one cool place

Ward, I think we have all had enough. April and October are my favorite weather months but this April has been nasty so far.

Linda
ne AL
zone 7b

I just visited one of my 3 favorites this past Saturday. Held off buying except for pansies and an excellent pot of old fashioned Bleeding Heart that they had a special on.

Patrick....After reading your message last year on the fuchsias that do well for you, I was very excited to find 'Golden Marinka' at one of these favorite places last year. It did very well although I didn't notice much action. Wasn't in the best of viewing places though. I hope they have it again this year.

Joni
Elwood, IL
Zone 5