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If you like snow, you should have been happy this winter! I, for one, am glad to see some bits of green showing where the white stuff is finally melting.

After a long dreary winter, the first flowers of spring are all the more welcome. Everyone knows crocuses and daffodils, but there are some lesser known beauties that are also worth planting for their early appearance of beautiful blooms.

Winter aconite, Eranthus hyemalisis, one of the first. It is a yellow flowering bulb that should be planted in the fall. It does well under deciduous trees or shrubs so it receives full sun until early summer when it goes dormant. Plant these little beauties where they can be seen along walkways or from a window.

Another late winter favorite is hellebores or Lenten rose. Since being named as Perennial Plant of the Year in 2005, the breeding and availability of this winter bloomer has skyrocketed. Like winter aconites, hellebores like a shady home in the garden. At our house they are tucked between the porch and some azaleas. Clean up tattered evergreen foliage before the flowers start to emerge in February or early March. I scraped some snow away today and saw the buds reaching upwards. Flowers come in shades of white, pink, and reddish purple. While several species are common, the H. orientalis hybrids seem to be the easiest to grow.

Witch hazels, a small flowering tree, are also a harbinger of spring. Their spidery, fragrant flowers in yellow, orange or red make a nice focal point in a mid to large yard. Cut branches of the fragrant flower to bring the outdoors in.

Snow drops, crocuses and scilla are all spring blooming bulbs that when planted in the fall, will reward you with beautiful early flowers. All three of these are very hardy, and will naturalize over time. When clumps get too large, dig some up and move to expand the bed- or give some to a friend.

One last early spring pick. Pasque flowers or pulsatilla, are one of my favorites. They bloom the same time as daffodils, late March in a normal year. The flowers have dark purple or red petals with a bright yellow center. Once the bloom is gone, their intriguing seed head are left, looking like a puff of smoke. Great for full sun in rocky or poor soil, these are tough little beauties.

If you are like me and are getting sick of the white stuff, take a look around you garden to be reminded that spring is coming. As my winter-loving uncle recently reminded me, we’ll be sweating in the sun soon enough.

A recent inquiry concerned English Walnut trees that seemed to start the fruiting cycle only to drop the fruit as summer arrived. The home gardener asked if a late winter/early spring application of spray oil would help.

I know very little about nut trees but that problem and suggested solution sparked a major collusion of conflicting ideas in my mind.  Horticultural oil is undoubtedly the home orchard grower’s most potent weapon against insects. With hard fruits, like apples and maybe pears, an oil application may be all you need to produce acceptable but not perfect fruit.

I would favor a delayed application until you see a bit of green (up to ¼ inch) showing on the twigs. In other words, green equals warmer temperatures which equals more insect activity which means better control.

On other fruits and flowering plants move a little quicker, as oil, especially at higher temperatures, will injure blooms. Nor do the insect problems of these plants play into the strong control suit of oil. Fruit drop and oil aren’t in the same playbook.

Poor fruit set and early fruit drop is almost universally a pollination problem. Proper pollination follows a number of roads. Road one is: do I have the right combination of plants? Is the plant self pollinating with a single male/female flower or separate male and female flowers on the same plant? Is there a separate male and female? Do you get better results if you mix cultivars of the same plant species? Those are questions that need answered before you plant.

A majority of plants are self pollinators but benefit from cross pollination. Hollies are a common plant with separate males and females. Viburnums, sweet cherries, most plums and apricots all need separate cultivars to be successful. Road two is the presence of a means of pollination. We all have heard about the problems with honey bees. Although critical , there is no evidence that it is a catastrophe. Numerous other native insects help carry the load. For us spring allergy sufferers we also know that the wind is a major pollinator. Spring weather also plays a role. Best pollination comes with a Goldilocks spring. Not too hot, not too cold and not too rainy.

Meanwhile, back at the walnut garden. A quick search of university publications suggests that English Walnuts are quirky in that often the male flowers are spent before the female flowers open, resulting in poor pollination and yields. Sounds like they need a Goldilocks spring or a mix of cultivars with varying bloom periods for best results.

Is this the winter of discontent for our feathered friends? Will lots of birds die if we don't feed them? There may be a few murmuring in disagreement but the overwhelming evidence is no to both questions.

My evidence follows. Birds have successfully populated the earth for many centuries before we decided to help them.

I feed suet, black sunflower seed, thistle seed and an economical seed mixture. My regular patrons include cardinals, blue jays, doves, chickadees, titmice, wrens, nuthatches, two different finches, three different blackbirds, four different woodpeckers and five different sparrows.

Eliminating the mixed seed would discourage most of the sparrows and blackbirds. My count is 21 different species that visit regularly. So far this year I have seen a good, but not ambitious, total of 74 different birds in Lancaster County.What are the other 53 eating?

At the height of the biggest February snowstorm a bluebird made an appearance. Did he eat? No, he just stopped for a drink from the heated birdbath. Robins and mockingbirds do the same. Another yard regular is the tiny brown creeper weighing in at about ¼ ounce. Does he help himself to the feeders? No, he searches the furrows in the tree bark for insect material.

After the big storm my wife escaped the house for a road walk and found a brown creeper on a telephone pole. We're not sure whether he was sending an SOS to the weatherman or just probing for insects.We planned a January escape south and I fretted about my birds. We left shortly after my wife turned the house thermostat down to 50 degrees. The immediate days before were some of the mildest of the year, so I decided to let the birds fend for themselves. What followed was some of the coldest temperatures in years.

Immediately on our return I fed the birds and she reset the thermostat.The birds were starting to come back by the time the house temperature reached 65 degrees. In fact, as the snow deepens, I have seen growing concentrations of birds at the feeder. They did not seem to mind that I had abandoned them for two weeks.

One of the first things a birdwatcher learns is that different birds hang out together. Often in the woods you can go for a long while bird-less and then stumble upon a significant mixed flock. Some of it is the protection of many eyes, but it is also significant that generally they don't compete for food. Each has its own diet and feeding method.

My offerings vary but I feed the birds almost year round because I enjoy seeing them. The birds honor me with their presence, not because they need me, but because it's tough to pass up a free lunch.

Sure, bird mortality may be a bit higher this winter because of the weather.However, feeder birds also are challenged by cats, window strikes and Cooper hawks who appreciate our efforts to concentrate bird populations giving them an easy meal.

My love affair with the large oak trees in my yard continues to grow. After the ice storm a quick survey of my yard netted five small limbs. One came off a large maple, two from wild cherries edging the yard, a birch sapling that broke at ground level and a sassafras sapling that broke off about ten feet from the ground.

All trees are not created equal.I didn't have to drive and look very much to see that willows, birch, cherries, poplar and white pines took the brunt of the punishment.Unlike my oaks, all are fast growing. That is the dilemma when landscaping. If you want it fast growing it is usually a weaker tree. If I were to plant an oak, hoping to replicate what I have in my yard, I would be doing it for a future generation.

Many people have damage, so what should you do? My guess is that in a season or so you will be surprised at the results if you just remove the broken limbs and prune the unbroken limbs to even out the appearance of the tree. Commercial arborists regularly give trees rather severe haircuts with no ill effects.

However, if the breakage continues severely into the central leader, the tree is probably lost. At the farm, about ten years ago I had planted nine river birch. Last summer one with a dual leader split during a windy thunderstorm. The ice storm took the other half while the other eight leaned severely and shed small branches until the ice receded but suffered little serious damage.

One caution.If you don't know which end of a chain saw to hold, hire somebody to do the work. Even if you think you know what you are doing, be careful; tree work is dangerous.The important lesson to learn from this storm is that many trees will form dual central stems or at least produce branches at narrow angles to the trunk. If you see this, prune now. I planted a good maple cultivar at my son’s new house two springs ago.

Last summer I procrastinated about what to do about its tight branching habit.This spring it will be pruned. It will look terrible when I'm done. However, in a few years he will have a tree that looks great and will shrug off events like the last storm.

As further reinforcement, on a recent walk I passed a white oak planted most likely by a forgetful squirrel some ten or twenty years ago.I have long admired this fencerow specimen and was shocked to find it split down the middle. What I hadn't seen was the double leader that started about ten feet off the ground.The storm created a mess. A few trees are lost, but most can be saved. More importantly, it brought into focus a landscape principle that is too often ignored. Tight branches or double leaders are an invitation for future problems.

Ok, my annuals are starting to get cold. It’s about time to bring in the ones I’d like to save.

A bit about “annuals”. There are basically four types of plants sold as annuals.

1). True annuals: These plants complete their lifecycle from seed to seed in one growing season. Think marigolds, or petunias. These will not do particularly well if brought into the house. The only way to keep them going would be to cut off the flowers as soon as they are finished to “trick” them into not setting seed and dying.

2).­Tender perennials:­ Theses are the ones worth saving. They would be hardy in the ground if we lived somewhere warmer, like the Bahamas. Think mandevilla vines and banana trees. My first exposure to lantana was as a 3-foot-tall shrub hedge around my apartment complex in Florida. Imagine my surprise when I moved back to PA and found it in 4” pots sold as an annual. Others worth saving would include shrimp plant, hibiscus, and tibouchina. My late grandmother had a gnarled, woody geranium in her house that was older than I was.

3). Reseeding annual­: This group may trick you into thinking they are perennials, because they reseed so readily they often come back in the same spot year after year. But they are true annuals. Think verbena, impatiens, melampodium, cosmos. Don’t try to save them. They save themselves. You can collect seed to start indoors if you like, but if you just wait until the ground warms a bit in late May/June, and don’t weed aggressively, they will come back by themselves.

4).Tropical bulbs, tubers and corms: This group stores nutrients in a fleshy root underground. Think caladiums, elephant ears, and dahlias. With dahlias, wait until the first killing frost, and the foliage has died back. Then wait a week and dig them up, shake off the dirt and store them in a cardboard box in the basement packed in sawdust or peat moss. Don’t allow them to freeze in a shed or garage outside. Same for tuberous begonias and cannas.

For caladiums and elephant ears, they must be dug before a hard frost. Elephant ears can be potted and just kept as a houseplant over the winter. Water lightly, and fertilize sparingly. Set them out in the spring after danger of frost. Caladiums require a rest period. Dig them up before frost and bring them indoors to dry and store in peatmoss. Must be above 50-60F. They will die in a cold basement. They can also be replanted next spring after danger of frost has passed and soil has warmed.

Now that you have figured out what kind of plants to save and what to say “goodbye” to, here is a primer. If it is in full sun in a container or in the ground, move it to the porch for a week or so to reduce the light exposure. This will help it make the transition into a lower light level in the house.

Give it a bath. Wash the leaves and stems in warm soapy water to remove any hitchhiking bugs. Inspect the roots as well. If it is infested, save yourself some heartache and pitch it in the compost pile. Get a fresh one next spring. I have wasted valuable window space on things that I thought I could clean up and ended up pitching, still buggy, the following spring.

This would also be a good time to prune your plant a bit. Removing the top growing portion (apical meristem) sends a hormonal signal to the rest of the plant to get bushier and fuller. This will fight against its natural urge to get tall and spindly inside under lower light.

Find a sunny window, but not in a large draft where chill injury can occur over the winter. If you are bringing in pointsettias or Christmas/Thanksgiving cactus, put them in an unused room where you won’t be turning on the lights after dark. This will help them color up and bloom naturally during the appropriate season.

Phew. Now it’s time to go dig those bananas.