I totally agree with you. I live in Slovenia near the border with Italy. Approximately 30 minutes drive from Adriatic sea. We have no winter, no temperatures below zero. We have micro climate, because in the major part of our country is the worst winter in years. Members from our rose community, who live near the sea are reporting, that their flowers never stopped blooming from last autumn. Sorry for my English.

I'm wondering who is having a "normal" winter. Places are either too cold ,warm, wet, or dry. We had rain in September, which isn't common. Then we had dry weather(not normal) til we had snow and several weeks of unusual cold in December. After that it was bone dry and warm at times until now when we are having decent February rain. I don't know what to think anymore.

Climate change due to global warming has been happening for some time, but in a less dramatic way, and I believe we're now finally beginning to see the full force of it. The predictable patterns that many of us experienced for most of our lives have suddenly turned topsy-turvy, and it's unsettling to say the least. With almost no rain here it's difficult to imagine what the coming year in the garden will be like. I do know that spring is at least one month early for the first time in my gardening life, after a winter that never really happened.

Soncna, your English is excellent, no need to apologize. I hope we'll hear more from you in the future.

Ingrid

So far, here around Los Angeles, all I can respond is, "what winter?" Kim

You're telling me... 50 degrees and sunny yesterday and the day before that, Raining and 40 this morning, now 35 out and snowing giant snowflakes... And next week it's supposed to be 10-15 degrees.

I don't know who is more confused - the birds or my bulbs.

Nik and Soncna, here in northern Italy we too have not had a winter, and it looks like spring. I saw the first almonds in flower yesterday. A handful of my roses have also never stopped blooming all winter: very weird. Normally we have a solid winter, frosts and snow and everything.
Soncna, have you just started posting to the forum? Welcome! It's a particular pleasure to hear from someone who's so close to me. I live in the province of Piacenza, in the Appennine foothills. Your English is fine, by the way.
Melissa

Hello Melissa. I am active member of this forum for whole two days. But I am following this forum for almost two years now. Two years ago I planted my first roses. At the same time I discovered strong community of rose lovers in our country. Because of small rose market here, majority of roses were bought in Italy (Susigarden and other nurseries near us). Now we are very lucky, because a lady in our country forum is importing old garden roses from Petrovic nursery in Serbia (I think i read your post once, where you mentioned your purchase in this nursery). I love reading about your rose experience.

Hi Soncna and welcome.

I have thought about buying from Petrovic but the expense of bank transfers and phytosanitary certificates plus customs clearance process have discouraged me from trying. I wish there was someone within EU who could act as a selling agent for them.

Melissa, since you mentioned almonds, for me it is the first time as far as I can remember that I see almond, apple and orange trees flowering concurrently. Very very weird.
Nik

This post was edited by nikthegreek on Fri, Feb 21, 14 at 8:27

Nik, our lady has her own web site, but only for local customers. Lets hope that Serbia joins EU ,because he has really impressive collection of old garden roses. But you can seek other rose lovers in Greece and order his roses together. That was the practice here, when members of our rose community split costs of import between them.

This post was edited by Soncna on Fri, Feb 21, 14 at 8:35