Like many parts of the country, things are starting to bloom here in the high desert. Plants are just as confused as the rest of us about the weather. I am seeing shoots on my Russian Olive tree and my apple tree. Iris are coming up= no blossoms yet but lots of green shoots. I hope we have seen the last hard frost and the lase big snowstorm of the season, but I have my doubts.

The butterfly bush and the roses in the planter in front of my house are beginning to turn green and new shoots are appearing daily. The weeds (aka plants we don't like) have a head start on everything. I am tempted to just think of tumbleweed as a perennial that I should trim and maybe treat it as a topiary plant instead of the never ending battle to eradicate the stuff. Tumbleweed was here long before I ever was and will probably survive me by centuries.

One of my favorites is rosa rugosa - not the fancy must be pruned exactly, finicky, display roses but the rosa rugosa that grows easily on its own root, spreads by suckering and needs no spraying little attention and gives much delight. This plant made its way from Asia to Europe to the west and still remains resistant to most disease and tolerates much more extreme weather than other roses....and rose hips tea is comforting, soothing and full of vitamin C. See, you can have edible landscaping even if you don't have a vegetable garden!

I used to think I was allergic to roses. Then I was introduced to these and figured out that it was probably the chemicals used to grow most of the roses I had come into contact with before that had caused my problems. This is a rose that grows in Siberia on sand dunes among other places on earth. That's my kind of rose! Not fancy, not demanding, just reliable, non demanding and beautiful.