While working in the protected cold frame today I noticed an emerging sprout on Tropaeolum azureum. Wow, am I HAPPY! This was planted in the fall of 2008, and this is the first appearance of the plant above ground since then. The sprout is amazingly slender: it’s now about four or five inches long above ground, seemingly black, and no thicker than sewing thread. Something about it reminds me of the rachis of ferns of the genus Adiantum. The other Tropaeolum up now is T. brachyceras; this one is growing freely and getting into everything nearby. So far the leaves of this one are tiny – maybe a quarter of an inch across. Snails have discovered the Narcissus blooming in the frame and have ruined the flowers of Narcissus (nominal) albidus foliosus. This name albidus is obviously wrong because the accepted usages of albidus refer to forms of Narcissus pseudonarcissus or to the hybrid N. x incomparabilis according to Kew World Checklist. The plant I’m writing about is one of the white-flowered hoop petticoat sorts. The Kew list accepts Narcissus foliosus (a Moroccan species) and N. cantabricus (southeastern Europe) but not N. monophyllus; I have not yet figured out which of these my plants represent – and I have little confidence that I will ever really know with certainty. But any little daffodil blooming in December is a pleasure. A white-flowered form of Narcissus tazetta is also blooming now: the scent of these is wonderful. I've said it before and I'll say it again: until I grew these in a cold frame, I was clueless about what wonderful plants they are. Somewhere I read about (or maybe saw a picture) of a father and son surrounded by blooming tazettas as they prayed in a mosque. Just a few of these cut for the house can scent a still room. I’m installing a new cold frame today to hold the overflow of marginally hardy plants. This cold frame will be beside my protected cold frame, but because of limited space, it will not benefit so much from proximity to the house wall and thus will not be so cozy. During the last several years I’ve accumulated a number of borderline hardy winter growing aroids which need a lot of space. Last year I planted a row of them (all small plants at the time) in the protected frame. They are thriving mightily, and now take up too much space. I won’t attempt to move these now, but next summer they will probably move next door into the less well protected frame. There are also lots of other Arum and Biarum in small pots which will go into this new frame today. My friend Alice grows a nice assortment of Arum in the open garden in her garden which is about fifteen miles due south of here (and lower in elevation). This fall she had nice bloom on Arum pictum. My Arum pictum (from Jane) is progressing nicely, but I don’t expect it to survive in the open garden here. Narcissus serotinus set a nice capsule of seed. Wouldn’t you know it: something nipped the capsule off as it was developing. I found it on the ground weeks ago; lucky for me, it ripened lots of seemingly good seed (I let it fall where the capsule opened) and now I’m curious to see when it germinates. Oxalis ‘Ken Aslet’ and O. ‘Garnet’ still persist in the protected cold frame: they are in the ground, not confined to pots. They have not wandered much from their original sites. ‘Garnet’ emerges with olive green leaves with a purple cast; they do not color up until later (if then). These probably need more light that they get. Until this year I’ve grown Notholirion thomsonianum in a pot. This year it’s in the ground (still in the protected cold frame), its roots free to wander. It looks bigger and lustier this year – it would be nice to see it in bloom. Moraea polyanthos is in lively growth in the protected frame, but there is no sign of bloom. Jim McKenney jimmckenney@jimmckenney.com Montgomery County, Maryland, USA, 39.03871º North, 77.09829º West, USDA zone 7, where it might get up near 60 degrees F today. My Virtual Maryland Garden http://www.jimmckenney.com/ BLOG! http://mcwort.blogspot.com/ Webmaster Potomac Valley Chapter, NARGS Editor PVC Bulletin http://www.pvcnargs.org/ Webmaster Potomac Lily Society http://www.potomaclilysociety.org/