Spring Thaw

If you live anywhere else in the country, the thought of marvelling at plants re leafing from their winter dormancy is enough to bore you into a stupor. For us, after living here for five years and having never seen this happen in winter's past, this has been nerve-wracking waiting to see what plants survived our 20 degree January mornings.

I'm happy to report that with the exception of a few vines that were recently planted, everything else seems to be recovering.

Below is one of my orange jubilees on the south side of the house. They all appear to be leafing out all the way to their frozen tips, and while it's been nice being able to see out our dining room window, I'm looking forward to having our privacy back again.

This is growth coming out of the base of our 10 foot tall bougainvillea that's on the south side of the house. This too is leafing out all the way to the top, and with all the leaves off this monster, I discovered a bird's nest up under the eaves of the house. Ah, the wonders of nature.

I thought this plumbago was a goner, since they are more suited for Hawaii weather. Most of the winter the branches of this thing seemed real crunchy (for the lack of a more scientific explanation), but behind all of that the main trunks of the plant were still green and are leafing out nicely, and quickly!

On a different note, since our Lilac vines blooms were scant this year (thank you freeze), it was nice to see the second plant in line for early spring blooming take off this past week or so. These are feather leaf cassias, adoringly called sneeze bushes by Emily. In two years these have grown from tiny one gallon plants to about four feet tall and across, dwarfing two of my citrus trees.