After a particularly nasty winter (almost as bad as the last four), it’s obvious that the weather gods hate me and that some plants don’t know they’re in full sun and “well drained soil”, especially if there’s no sun because the plants are covered in snow, and the soil froze before anything could drain to wherever it’s supposed to drain.
The Cactus Doctor took one look at these two and said “prognosis negative”, which was a pretty good guess because the things are dead. No need for an autopsy here.
With this one, the falling over part isn’t necessarily bad, but the translucent pinkish-orange part is very bad. The green part at the top doesn’t help, because, well, the way this works is, if the top part is dead, no problem, but if the bottom is dead, the plant would have to grow from the top down in order to recover, and that hardly ever happens.
Another way to tell is to poke it with a stick. This is what’s happening here. In this example, the cactus looks perfectly okay, though fallen over, but upon poking it, an eerie squishiness becomes evident. Prognosis negative.
Here, Fritillaria sewerzowii has stuck its head above ground, completely ignoring the real possibility that it will have its little posterior frozen right off. There’s another one just out of the picture here, that’s playing it safe and hiding in the ground.
Apparently, Bulbocodium vernum (a.k.a. Colchicum bulbocodium) either isn’t poisonous like the rest of its family, or the creature munching on the flowers in this out-of-focus picture doesn’t care about such things.
Crocus ‘Early Gold’, unaware that the middle of March is hardly what I would call early (the crocus season is usually over here by the end of March), is blooming, despite being eaten.
The moss in the troughs has turned green. These are both native species, drying out completely during the summer, and very much subject to being torn apart by birds looking for whatever it is that lurks in moss.
But spring is just around the corner. My rodent control is on the prowl. Now to get a couple of farm-raised pythons and let them do their thing.
the miserable gardener 