The ornamental cherry in front of our house bloomed on the 1st of February. That's about a week earlier than it did last year. The Magnolias at USCLB, or are they tulip trees, were already budding and by the end of February they are displaying their full glory.
By the middle of February my grape vines started putting out shoots and I haven't finished pruning them yet. As most gardeners I was counting on a little bit of a break during the Winter months. Hey, two weeks would be nice.
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| Ornamental Cherry blooming on February 1st. | Magnolias at CSULB in mid February. | Crazy grapewine puting out early shoots. |
I was figuring on pruning the roses at the beginning of March but by mid February they were already putting out substantial new growth and lovely buds. Guess they will get there yearly trim at the start of the dry season. Seems that here in SoCal they take their yearly snooze in the summer. Wonder if that is a more natural cycle for them since they are originally from the Middle East and here they never loose their leaves. It's funny how my Pomegranate, also from the same region as the rose, follows the winter dormancy pattern - looses all it's leaves in December and starts sprouting new ones by mid February - go figure. It would be so much easier if, like women sharing an apartment, they'd get all synchronized?
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| Roses shooting out new growth. | Lovely, mid February rose buds. | Pomigranate is thinks it's Spring. |
The macadamia nut, I don't mind it blooming so early. I love the flowers and the tree is not due for a trim till next year. The Key Lime, on the other hand, surprised me with it's early set of flowers - haven't decided about whether to still trim it or not.
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| Macademia flowers will be poping soon. | Key lime tree is already in bloom. | Snow capped mountains from the 605. |
All this early Spring activity, it has been getting progressively earlier in the 17 years that I've lived here, has lead me to reconsider my gardening schedule. Maybe the "dormant" season should be mid summer and not the winter months like in the more temperate areas I used to live in. Seems a lot of people are making this mistake and that's because so many of us are transplants from up North and back East.
My apologies to my back East friends as they dig themselves out from yet another record snow storm but I like the way they do snow in SoCal. Restricting snow fall to the mountains at over 3000 feet makes sense. It's only an hours drive away and the fact that I can see snow peaked mountains from my street is a very special treat.
On Sunday Rachel, our 3 dogs and me, took the drive, on a whim, after going to the farmer's market by the Long Beach marina. Within about an hour and 15 minutes we were frolicking in the snow. It was Cheeto's first snow and he liked it a lot. True there were thousands of Angelinos enjoying the snow with us and yes, we were lucky that the 405, 605, 210 and 15 were easy going. But still, this was special.
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| Rachel and the dogs in the snow. | Learning to use the iPod Nano for video. | iPod Nano video recording results - pardon the thumb. |
It's supposed to rain again by the end of the week. Maybe this time we will bring a jacket, some boots - oh, and maybe a sleigh.
