Hardy plants on 50' X 100' lot

23 Feb 2011 Rambling rose, white with shell-pink center, in terrible shape this winter, about to be cut back, is indomitably doing its best to bloom.

Well, I agree, plants needn't be in Kew to be interesting (I tell myself, being past much hiking) and every Spring I wait to see what will have survived.  While I wrestle with one of those art historical inquiries into numismatics, I'll resort to semi-tropical hardy perennials on my little lot.  I just noticed that the azaleas that were pruned a bit later than they ought to be, and by the yardman's gasoline-powered shears, have just made a lot of buds, still tiny; they will take some weeks.  Meanwhile, if I look daily, I may succeed in seeing the wild iris, if they come up (other bulbs will be later, unless you count wild onions), and I can assure you that very soon the rambling rose, which a student brought to me in a pot about five years ago, and which I thought might be a goner with its nearly leafless long branches every which way (it sort of went wild when the painters cut it back almost to the ground a couple of years ago), quite surely is coming back and equally surely will bloom, perhaps before the azaleas do if the days remain above 60°F.  Yesterday, we broke a record at 86°F, though overnight it dipped to 44°F.  SEMI-tropical! Yesterday the rambler got new growth all over the place.  The only question is whether the white roses will have shell-pink centers anymore.  Fig tree (immortal) is still dormant.