My apricot bloomed first week of April. So the peach and nectarine. I looked today the petal fell and I can see a little fruit but I think my zone 7 is warmer than your zone 5. I protected the flowers from flower rut now I have to protect the fruit. Last year the fungi was unusual I hope we will fair better this year.

Flora, I thought they might be G. ikariae, when I bought those first few bulbs back in the 60's they were in a bulk bin just labeled snowdrops. I thought I was just buying the common ones, when these shiny green leaves came up the following year I thought to myself these don't look like snowdrops, good job I didn't shovel prune them LOL. When they finally bloomed I went looking trying to identify them, I thought they looked very much like the ikariae in the book Shrubs by Roger Phillips and Martyn Rix so if you think they might be too, they probably are. Glynis, this is the second H. foetidus I've had, the first one I had for 4 years and then it up and died. This one I've had for about 6 years, I haven't let it set seed maybe that's why I still have it. We'll see I want to collect seed this year, hope I don't lose it. I have another little odd ball a girlfriend grew from seed she collected, it has small green flowers and blooms a little later, could be a cross or... I moved it last year so don't think it will bloom this year. When it does I'll post a pic on the Hellebore forum, see if I can get an identification. I said I wasn't going to order any more Hellebore seed but I see Ashwood Nursery is now selling seed of their doubles, I'm weakening LOL. LOL Kathy, "Some people would complain if you hung them with a new rope" I'm going to remember that one. As far as winters go Vancouver is having the warmest winter in their recorded history so we on the island probably are too. Right now most years the ground would be frozen. Thanks all for taking a look, I usually don't have anything to show at this time of year and when I finally do it's just old hat, I'm so far behind everyone else when things bloom. Annette

I found Empress Wu at a local nursery last year for $15.99 that had 8 or 9 eyes. At that point, I don't think I had paid over $10 for a hosta, so I decided it was "too much" to pay for a Hosta and left her sitting there. After we got home, I showed my DH pictures of Empress WU and read through some posts on this form and saw what others had paid. Realzing what a good buy we had passed up, my DH grabbed his wallet and went racing back to the nursery. On the way, he called me on his cell phone, giving me minute-by-minute updates until Empress Wu was safely in his car. This was the "defining moment" that we realized we were totally hooked on hostas.

Here is what it looked like in 2012. The other possibility is the roundup i used to kill the weeds around it the fall before.