Well the holidays are finally over, which for me is a mixed blessing.  One reason for this is that I work in retail, and any of you who have that experience listed on your resume know how it colors your Christmas experience.  However, as a gardener I need the holidays to distract me with lights and glitter from the fact that it is now winter and my time outside is brief.  The winter doldrums are one of the reasons I discovered and enjoy garden blogging, and it was in January three years ago that I first started A Tidewater Gardener.   I figured if I couldn't actually be out in the garden, then I could be talking about it with other gardeners and seeing what they were up to, and now it has nearly become an obsession that knows no season.

      So in honor of the month in which people attempt new things, I have started to blog for Virginia Gardener.  I hope you will follow along as Jan and Alan and I share our thoughts on my favorite topic - gardening.  Playing in the dirt was once just something I did when I wasn't working, but now it is my work.  Over the years I have helped many of my customers with plant ID, selection, plant care and with pest issues.  So if you have a question of that nature, please ask and I will give it my best shot.  Just a word of warning though, sometimes I am opinionated, and I can't answer any off-topic questions.  My plant knowledge comes at a cost, in that on most other topics I am a complete idiot.

     For my inaugural post I would like to share the above picture with you, because for me it says something new is coming, even in the depths of winter.  This is a Hime flowering quince (Chaenomeles'Hime') given to me by a good friend.  She could not tell me exactly which species it was, but she did say it was long flowering.  For me it begins in December and has blooms on it well into April, more than long enough to help me make it through the cold months.  I took the picture last week after the third greatest snowfall Norfolk has had since records have been kept, and I have decided to take my cue from the quince and enjoy what this season has to offer.  I hope you will follow along as well, and before we know it, spring will be here.