The birds are singing, the Mt. Aso pussywillow (Salix chaenomeloides ‘Mt. Aso’) is coloring buds, crocus are emerging, and it feels for all the world like early-spring outside. Given that we really ought to still be tucked into winter, it would be a little premature to start cutting the garden back quite yet. But unless winter suddenly shows up in the next few Groundhog’s Day weeks, we will be out cutting the gardens back earlier than usual. It’s high time to take a tool inventory and sharpen a few things (and in our case, replace a few) to get ready.

Almost exactly a year ago I did a post on how-to sharpen pruners and I’m sorry to have to print a total retraction now. I had taken a few lessons from my husband (who I reported as having a keen interest in anything at least as sharp as my wit) and what he taught made perfect sense to me. I recommended flattening the flat side of the blade of and touching up the bevel.

Alas flattening the flat side wasn’t a great idea – particularly for the grape shears we use for deadheading. Over the course of the summer, snip after snip seized up, refusing to close and ever snip again. The garden volunteers, quite rightly, wanted my head on a platter. It was that frustrating.

Below is a video produced by DMT, the makers of the diamond sharpeners we use. In it you’ll see that the correct way to sharpen a bypass pruner is to run the file only along the bevel from the inside out, pushing towards the edge rather than away from it. (Away strokes raise a burr.) Check their website for more videos on how to sharpen snips, scissors, knives, etc.

My fingers are crossed that no one ruined any good tools by following my bum advice. I have some hope because the pruners I use daily never seized up or failed to cut properly. And luckily our Felcos are still working properly. (I have deleted the erroneous post from our archives.)

Have you been tending to your tools, getting ready for a spring that might be here before we know it? Do you have any advice – or admonitions – to share?

It’s still January for at least for another day or so, but it looks strangely an awful lot like mid-February – or even March here and there, and feels about the same. My brain thinks that means that May is right around the corner. But it isn’t. Not by a long shot. We can’t have seen the end of winter yet.

It’s hard to keep from speculating about spring and summer. Will the pendulum swing? Will we get dumped on by an April blizzard? Will summer be miserably chilly? All we can be sure of is that the weather is weird and will probably continue to be so from here on in. I think I can’t remember anymore what normal feels like anyway.

And who knows what the plants are thinking. My guess is that plants that hate wet winter feet are hating having wet feet. We’ve had more rain and less snow than we’re used to and the ground is only staying frozen – just barely – in the shade.

Anything that is blooming early isn’t likely to come into bloom again at the proper time so with any luck their pollinators are taking advantage of the warmish weather too. Selfishly, I can’t help but be a little disappointed about premature blooms because some flowers are easily wrecked by temperature swings and don’t look quite as outstanding as they otherwise could.

But it is what it is and the only thing to do is go in search of the tease and enjoy its pull towards spring. I know it’s way too early for bloom day too but what haven’t you had to wait for in your garden?

It is prettier than the old map, interactive (click on it to check out the zip code zone finder), and the information is finally up to date. But it’s not good news and there are no surprises here. Nothing we haven’t already figured out for ourselves. The new map is based on weather-station data collected between 1976 and 2005 (as opposed to the 1990 map, which was based on data from 1974-1986.) I’m actually surprised at the similar spread of years used in the data collection – it feels like the temperature changes have been more wildly noticeable in the years since the last map was drawn and with that bias the map might tell a different story. We are living through proof that wild swings occur from one year to the next and so far this wimpy winter could count to notch our zone even higher.

Blithewold is solidly within the very cusp of zone 7a. (My garden a mile and a half away is 6b.) But we have always called it zone 6 to play it safe. That way we can be pleasantly surprised when marginally hardy plants come back to life again in the summer. Aucuba japonica (zone 6-10) has always bounced back for us – I only remember one winter that almost did it in. Harlequin glory bower (Clerodendrum trichotomum, zone 7-10) has been perfectly hardy too, not even dying back to the ground like the books say it should when it lives on the edge. Ours has had the protection of the North Garden wall (seen in the picture below recently repaired.) Salvia guaranitica (zone 7-10) has come back for us in the Display Garden herb bed for the last 3 years or so.

I’m tempted to use this map’s confirmation of what our experience has been to finally call our zone a 7, and as an excuse to make the best of it and test the hardiness of a few more plants. At home I have successfully overwintered leopard plant (Farfugium japonicum ‘Aureomaculata’, zone 7-8) and am trying cast iron plant (Aspidistra eliator, zone 7-11) and Tetrapanax paperifer (zone 7-10) this year. Perhaps if we found just the right spot along a south facing wall, (I have such a spot at home…) a winter blooming Edgeworthia chrysantha (zone 8-10) could be coerced to return. But I suppose that would really be pushing it. (So to speak.)

Of course it bears remembering that zone hardiness isn’t the only measure of a plant’s ability to survive in our gardens – soil quality, light and moisture levels are at least as important, over winter and summer. Has your zone changed? Will you use the new information to take a chance on anything new?