Well, went home after work yesterday and first thing I did was check my apple trees. They are almost all at full bloom!! Some were completely open and the others were almost there. After another 80 degree day today I'm sure that they will all be open. Man...what a bummer. Calling for strong storms tonight from about 7:00-12:00. Wind gusts 30-45 mph and possible tornado activity and large hail. We just can't win here. If it's not the wind, heavy rain, hail, and....oh yeah....TORNADOS...it's going to be the freezing!! Now they are saying the low's will be high teens to low 20's!! I may as well not get my hopes up for my trees. I was looking forward to my first year with some apples but probably not going to happen now. Mother Nature sure can be a real pain sometimes.. Oh well. I do have my garden all tilled up almost ready to go. My Tomato, Eggplant, and Okra plants are already started in the basement. Hopefully I'll at least have a good garden if nothing else this year! Good Luck everybody...

I should be clear. I don't think lime sulfur caused my asthma. But now that I have it, I'm supposed to wear a respirator to spray anything, regardless of the label. I haven't done a lot of spraying, and I surely won't be doing much more. A respirator is a pain, not to mention the reaction from the neighbors... Lime Sulfur is as dangerous as other materials with a DANGER label. Many of us, I include myself here, were under the impression that because it is considered "organic" it is benign. Far from it. Like most fungicides, the real danger is the concentrate and exposure when mixing. It has a real tendency to splatter. It always splatters when you've taken off your gloves and goggles to read the label and mix it. It also stains very badly - - don't get it on anything metal or on your garden lights or paths or walls or your house - - and it is absorbed through the lungs and skin. So you must wear protective equipment. This is not the stuff to be cavalier about. There's something to be said for spending a few bucks to buy a margin of safety. But then I also wear sunscreen... OTOH, it has some virtures. It does stick rather well. Notice also that it is labeled for scale and mites. So combined with oil you hit them with a double whammy. One last thing. I suspect, but don't know for sure, that it is hard to keep in suspension in the sprayer and that it sometimes burns the canes. That's a rough one here because of the possibility of sunburn and/or salt spray damage. Here is a link that might be useful: typical lime sulfur label

Heart breaking pictures. Sorry. BUT, as you know, this is simply a fact of life in the world's most continental climate. (in the sense of ridiculous swings. While Siberia and Northern China are cold as can be in winter, they stay cold, and when spring arrives, it arrives for good) I've assumed the facilities that have to contend with it either use sprinklers or tyvek-like row cover/blankets to protect rare plants. We can just get so darn warm in winter. Resin and I had a chat a while ago about where to collect the Cornus florida that would do the best in the UK. He brought up the issue of northernmost collections being used to a winter that stays winter...but even that's not true. Syracuse NY is probably its northernmost range in the interior of the east coast, and even it can get warmer in February than London. Yes, only by a degree celcius, but you're talking about a zn 5 with 100+ inches of snow versus a zone 9 with many subtropical plants like Eucs being quite common. Of course a C. f. from Asheville might still be a better collection for the UK, but the notion even our northlands always stay cold is a false one. Related to the reason I came here today, apparently the guy who had the largest collection of magnolia hybrids in the SE lost a huge number of them back in 2006 or 2007 when a freeze in SC/NC brought temps to the teens in April after they were fully leafed out. 30' Gresham magnolias died totally...not even able to sprout again from the base. They have the Chinese & Himalayan genes that are used to the far more consistent winters there. This post was edited by davidrt28 on Tue, Feb 26, 13 at 14:28

That's the answer I was expecting, but didn't want to hear. :) I'm more than ready to get out and work in the garden. Plus I have some time off the next couple of weeks. It seemed a good time to get out there with sunny skies and temps forecast in the 70's. Oh well, I'll have to work on something else. Thanks, Julie