I forgot I was going to ask...what do you do with your butterfly plants in the winter?

I totally understand about the first shoots of green coming up, and hopefully spring is just around the corner.

Everything is dormant at best, here in the winter. My butterfly bush gets cut back to about 12" shoots. If I'm lucky, the herbs such as fennel, dill and rue will come back the next year, but sometimes I have to replant them. I have a perennial passion flower vine, but if the winter is harsh, sometimes it turns itself into an annual and I have to get a new one. And the hollyhocks and milkweed (aesclapius) die back and come back in the spring. No butterflies here in the winter, although in early spring we start seeing cabbage whites and checkers around the pansies and kale.

I love hollyhocks, I haven't ever seen them in anyone's yard but I think I will give them a try. It's going to get down into the 30's tonight, so its hard to think about gardening, but in a couple of days it will feel like spring and I will be starting on spring chores.

I garden every day. Someone has to push up the daisies.

Gym, how droll. The world is much worse off without your wit.

Why thank you, Sir Paul! It's an honor to be recognized by you, sir.

I would guess you can grow hollyhocks, although I don't know for sure. They are biennials, so they might function as perennials where you live. They're one of my favorite flowers...have such an old fashioned feel.

Anyone know how to best reseed or resod a lawn??? And when is the best time to do it. I would imagine now (in the south of course) but I just don't know for sure.

You can resod at any time of the year, its a lot easier than seeds or plugs, but would be the most expenive.

No matter what you do, you will have to water every day for a week or two and every other day for another week or two. That's why some people wait for the rainy season.

Did you have a lawn before?

I am a complete neophyte at lawn management. I know that if you have a bare spot, you can throw grass seed on it and water like crazy and grass actually grows, but otherwise, I'm clueless. Sod is easy, but expensive, that too I know. There are lawn care guides sold at places like Home Depot, I think, that tell you how to reseed a lawn, though.

The quince's have started blooming here, and I'm getting the urge to plant Forsythia! That may be my new project, after I move the rose bush I still haven't gotten around to moving

This is my first lawn, and it is infested with WEEDS and crabgrasses. I tried really hard the first year to keep it free of all that, but the company I hired got too expensive and they didn't seem to work, so, I am left now with an untreated lawn that has been totally taken over by crabgrass and other weeds. Parts of the lawn are totally dead. I plan on digging it all out (with a shovel of course) and then just seeding. Might take a long time, but I think it will be most cost effective way for me to replant half of my front lawn.

JOY!

And Jill, our azaleas (sp?) are blooming, it's so pretty. I just have to redo my front flower bed now to match the spring time. I wish I had to money to do all that I wanted. Oh well. A little color and life is still fun! :-)

Your azaleas are blooming!? Ours don't bloom 'til mush later. I love azaleas, and we have all sorts of colors here. It's kind of the town flower.

Yes our azaleas are blooming! It's spring time in Florida baby! :-)

Gidget...Digging up the lawn and seeding is going to be tough, have you thought about just putting in flower beds? Anyway, it would be good exercise and would burn lots of calories.

Betts...I had to look up Quince and Forsythia. I don't remember having ever seen them. Forsythia makes me think of the redbud trees that are in bloom now. It sounds like quince has fruit, do you do anything with the fruit?

Azaleas are really looking pretty now. I'm trying to plan a trip to Cypress Gardens to see the plants and whatever else is new there.

People do DaaaZ, but I don't. The flowers are a beautiful raspberry pink, and then the fruit are a fairly large orangish color. People make jelly from quince, I know, but I'm not much of a jelly maker. I don't think you can eat them off the bush because they're very sour. Haven't tried, though.

Are your redbuds blooming already? Ours are not. They're one of my favorites too and I have two of them in front of my house. They actually look great with forsythia....yellow and lavender are such great spring colors. I'm off to the nursery today to satisfy my craving for spring blooms.

I live on the bad half of the state here. The soil is very alkaline and it's hot and dry, so azaleas are not happy here, unfortunately. The other half of the state has very southern weather and soil, and so the dogwood, azaleas and rhododendron are magnificent. Ah well, Tulsa is not far away!

Gidget, you need to buy a product called Weed and Seed. Scott's ,I think, makes it. I think it goes out in the fall but makes a major difference in your yard. Can check further if you are interested.

Thanks Daaaz and Luncky. The yard is way too big to cover it in flowers, and way to big to totally dig out. But I am planning of putting in a stepping stone path, so I will remove a large part to do that anyway. I'll take up a little more on both sides and see how that works out.

The weed and seed was done a few times, with not much to no success. I don't think I followed through all that well! I just know that the crab grass has taken over HUGE parts of my lawn, and the only way to get rid of crab grass is to dig it out and reseed or sod. Blah! I have a lot of work ahead of me. I think I am going to start this weekend. I bought the proper shovel! So now the dig out begins. Wish me luck.

And I will put in a slightly larger flower bed than is in there right now, and a new one along the fence I just had built. So part of the good part of the lawn can just be moved to the dig out bad part. Or at least that is what I am hoping to do!!

Flower beds are wonderful solutions to lawn problems! And they're prettier. I love having freestanding beds in lawns. And you can put a small ornamental tree in the bed and create some height and interest. Of course it's supposed to snow here tomorrow, ruining all my plans to grunge around in the dirt.

It is so warm here Betts that its hard to believe everyone else is still having winter. My Walmart just got in a lot of new plants, so of course I had to buy some. Buying them is the fun part. Planting them is work