Backyard Nature Wednesday: Waking up

Plants that looked entirely dead in the middle of January are now waking up and showing signs of life once again.

The old azalea didn't die back, of course, but it did lose some leaves. Now it is beginning its bloom cycle, which always starts at the bottom of the shrub and works its way to the top.


The split-leaf philodendrons that were a pile of black mush after our January freeze are now coming back, putting up new leaves.

The yellow cestrum lost all of its leaves, but now the new ones are coming on.

The lemon grass clumps all died back to the ground and I pruned off all the dead leaves with a hedge trimmer. Soon you won't be able to tell that it was "dead" in January.


Milkweed, slowly coming back. It can't be fast enough for the butterflies. I'm going to need to get some new plants from the nursery to fill in until my old plants can regain their growth and their blooms.

White mistflower, coming back strong, after losing all of its leaves to the frost.

Both my Satsuma and Mandarin orange trees are putting out new leaves, but I'm afraid the lemon trees are completely dead after blessing us with a bumper crop of fruit last year. Temperatures in the low 20s F were apparently just too much for them.

Hope is kindled as the garden wakes up and new life begins.

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