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When gardeners are in bloom Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Celia Wann of Eagle Point concentrates on the combination of flowers she wants to buy for her church's landscaping while shopping this weekend at the Grange Co-op on Highway 99 in Medford. Although it's still winter, warm days mean gardeners can work in earnest preparing for a colorful spring. By JOHN DARLING for the Mail Tribune Early spring warmth is bringing out gardeners in search of bare root plants, "cool vegetables," gaily colored flowers and spring bulbs to stick in the quickening soil - and of course, to provide an excuse to be active and outside again. "They're after primroses, pansies and roses to brighten things up, bare root fruit trees, strawberries and raspberries, spring vegetables - the cool crops (plantable in cool, early spring), like spinach, lettuce, broccoli, and peas," said Rick Topjian of the Medford Grange Co-op. "Spring bulbs are going in now. These are the ones that bloom in late spring and early summer, like gladiolas, dahlias, hostas and caladium." Frost still happens in the Rogue Valley, usually until Mother's Day, according to gardeners' legend, so you might want to mulch those cool veggies or cover them with sheet, towel or plastic, he said. "It's been nice and busy," said Logan Miller of the Grange, where dozens had just attended a greenhouse seminar. "There's sort of a euphoria with the sunshine - and the rain is manna for gardeners too. They're putting in asparagus, cauliflower, rhubarb and lots of bare roots." "My students will be planting marigolds, zinnias and pansies for Mother's Day," said Kathy Koon, teacher at Little Shasta Elementary School in Montague, Calif., about 5 miles east of Yreka. "It's exciting for them to see things grow - and we will be buying one of these 8-by-12 greenhouses to grow things in." Stephanie Pollard of Ashland was starting from scratch, picking up seeds to sprout eggplant, peppers and other vegetables in pots inside, then planting them after the last frost, when they're 3 to 4 inches high. "I'm going to tear up my flowering uglies that just aren't pretty anymore," said Ann Kennedy of Medford, "and replace them with some hot weather flowers. For inside, I'm looking at cyclamen or calla lilly." Linda Jones was shopping for carnations and lavatera arborea (a large flowering perennial) for a large flower garden in her Medford yard and Celia Warren of Eagle Point scooped up pansies and primroses to color her church for Easter season. Yellow-blooming forsythia, pink or white heather, highly fragrant daphne and other bushes are popular for planting now, said Jana Larson of Ray's Garden Center in Ashland, as well as bouquet-variety flowers and fruit trees. "Customers feeling the warm weather are asking if it's safe to put out geraniums," she said, "but we have to remind them that the last average frost day here is mid-May." John Darling is a free-lance writer living in Ashland. E-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.