An Idaho Master Gardener shares spring tips and local news

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An Idaho Master Gardener shares tips and gardening news for early spring

An Oregon Master Gardener shares current tips and news

MY MOTHER’S ANNUAL New Year’s Day count usually records some 60 plants in flower in her Northern California garden. … Perhaps the most spectacular are the expansive drifts of paperwhite narcissus (N. papyraceus) spread out on the sloping hillside below the house.

THERE IS NOTHING like the fantasy of full-blown, flowery gardens in the middle of winter to reassure us that the earth is again spinning toward springtime. What else but a flower show offers daffodils blooming beneath spires of June-flowering delphiniums or the luxury of inhaling lily perfume five months early?

Oh, the blessed climate of California, where frost rarely if ever threatens the magnolia blossoms.