The silence is killing me...

I know I have been fairly quiet on my garden blog the past couple of weeks.  The primary reason is that my work and travel has been keeping me real busy.  It did not help that our recent freeze brought my hybridizing program to a standstill leaving me very little positive things to report on.  While the work and travel part is not going to change much in the immediate future, I plan to be getting back on track with my hybridizing projects by the end of this month.  New growth abounds and dozens of brugmansia plants are back in bud. 

As I write this my anticipation is building.  I’m currently flying back from a conference in Utah and my plants have been on their own for five days.  Seeing how I will not get home till after midnight, you can be assured that I will be running around in the wee hours of the morning with my headlamp and flashlight to see what my seedlings have been up to since I left.  I’m a bit nervous as well because I plucked a couple of fat caterpillars off my youngest seedlings right before I left.  It was about ready to rain at the time so that prevented me from engaging in chemical warfare with the pests.  Caterpillars have tremendous appetites so if they managed get a stronghold while I was away, I may be greeted by trays of leafless twigs.

At least pest problems evolve slower during the winter months.  That gives me some comfort, especially seeing how  I'm back on the road for five days again next week.