My garden in early March, and some of the light garden in flower

 A photo of all the signs before the bridge at Reedsport, California from our trip. 

 miniature African violet in its decorative pot.  The pot looks better than the flower.  :)

 The species Cattalaya Intermedia in bloom from late February to early March.  It has a nice fragrance.

 The white Phalenopsis, that was the blue one when I purchased it a few years ago.  It had a nice show of five flowers.  Was starting its bloom when we left on our trip on February 16 and is still in bloom now, on March 18.  Dan took good care of the plants while we were away.  Thanks Dan, for your care of our home.

 The Harry Lauders walking stick putting on its annual show of golden catkins.

 below the golden catkins the epimedium is dressed in its Spring burgundy and growing out of the green moss.  It seems to like this location and is thriving and blooming in light yellow.  This moss garden is beginning to fill in with the moss and the shade plants.  With the plum tree gone, I should have less debris to clean off the moss. 

Some of the crocuses in the strip along in front of the two rectangles of the front boulevard garden.

The past week we have had some warmer temperatures, but I have not been out gardening.  I have had some things to catch up on after our trip.  Pat is putting together my new table and chairs.  I have had a little time to work on the November in the garden album of my ancient web page.  I hope to have it uploaded by the end of the month.

Trip to Southern California

From February 16 to March 8, 2018, we took our new Unity motor home on its maiden run to Southern California.  We were traveling south on the #101 trying to keep ahead of a storm that was rapidly going south.  We were unable to stay ahead of the cold winds and rain/sleet.  But we finally travelled far enough south to get into some warmer weather.  We spent a few days in the Desert Palms area and then headed north again, up the I-5.   We got to Sacramento where we met another storm heading south.  We spent two nights in the campground there.  The second day was a trip to Rocklin to the Mercedes Dealer.  The engine light had come on some days ago and we had to get it looked at.  This half hour trip in high winds and sleet was extremely stressful.  We made it to the appointment on time and had the matter resolved.  It was a software update that caused the light to come on.  The trip back to the campground was less of a stress as the winds and rain were letting up.  Next morning the weather looked far better.  We had clear sailing up the I-5 into warmer weather than we had down South.  Every day of the trip we were learning something new about the Unity; that is: how to operate things.  We still have much to learn, but are much more comfortable with it, than we were while setting out in a storm. 
The top photo is from the coast of Oregon.  The winds made the ocean spectacular to watch.  The bottom photo is somewhere in the Yucca Valley.
In the garden the crocuses, daffodils and wind flowers are in bloom.  The Harry Lauder's walking stick bush is dressed in its long golden catkins.  The pond/moss/Japanese garden area looks so much different with the old plum tree cut down.  Looking over the deck I get a clear view of the pond and rest of the area. There will be more light, so perhaps I can attempt to grow water lilies again.  There seems to be 4 fish left in the pond.  Maybe I can get shubunkins when it warms up again.  

Something from January of 2018

On January 9, 2018, I had Davey Tree take down the old plum tree and the pin oak that was too close to the garage.  The stump photo is what is left of the plum tree.  Keith from Davey Tree said that this wood will darken up.  It looks gorgeous as it is now.  The plum tree was diseased and getting really ratty looking as we could not prune it properly.  I am getting accustomed to looking at the pond from the back deck and seeing no plum tree branches obscuring the view.  I will miss the white cloud of blossoms in the early spring, though.  We were not harvesting very many of  the yellow plums, although it still produced far more than we needed.  Hope Trevor and family are not too disappointed that we took it down.
The pin oak had lovely Fall color, but was too close to the garage, so it had to come down.  There is a rhododendron growing next to pin oak.  Since the oak has come down, I can already see improvement in the rhodo.  The first photo shows the fantastic machine that took the Keith over the garage roof and he was able to take down the pin oak tree right from the bucket of the machine.  He saved some wood from the trunk of the oak and the plum for our fire place.