At last... zone 5 is coming alive!

Believe it or not, spring seems to have finally arrived. At least for a day here and there. After last month turned out to be the coldest April on record, no wonder it's taking a while to warm up. Most of our local area is USDA zone 5. We may have a short season here but it still beats the central Montana zone 4 where I was born and raised. I remember seeing it snow at least once in every month there, even August.

Have you heard the term "graupel?" (Also called soft hail or snow pellets.) The TV weather people have been using the word lately to describe what we used to think was hail. Evidently those little white pellets we see in early spring are actually rain droplets surrounding a snowflake. Hail is formed in a different way with just ice. If you think graupel sounds like a German word, you're right.

Most of us are getting itchy fingers to get those annuals planted. If you don't have enough yard space, you can always go with containers. These will work for most kinds of vegetables, not just flowers. Whatever you decide to grow, be sure to use the largest pots you can. The larger the pot, the less often you'll need to water it. Be sure it has good drainage. Most containers come that way, but some, like wine barrels, will need to have good sized holes punched into the bottom. Do that first, then fill your container part way with something to take up space.

Potting soil is expensive, so why waste it. There are a variety of things which will work to take up a lot of that extra bottom space. I've successfully used pine cones, Styrofoam chunks or large pellets, even small plastic water bottles will work. Just about anything that won't rot will do the job. Most annuals don't have roots going down deeper than about eight inches.

You can grow all of one kind or mix it up. Whether it's flowers or veggies, for a pleasing balance the best way to go is with three different shapes. A tall growing plant in the back, a bushy one in the center and a trailing one in front. In the nursery industry, they refer to them as a "thriller, a filler and a spiller."

Nearly all vegetables require full sun, meaning 6 to 8 hours a day. Most flowers require several hours of sun, but there are a few that will bloom with very little. The best of these are the impatiens. Keep these watered, give an occasional dose of fertilizer and they will reward you with flowers all summer. Most begonias also work well in these areas. Some of my favorite plants for shady areas are coleus. The flowers are insignificant, but the leaves are out of this world gorgeous. Remember that no plants will do well in deep shade. They all need at least a bit of bright light to produce the photosynthesis needed to create the food they live on.

I'll bet some of you bird watchers know what the term "torpor" means. If not, it refers to a state similar to hibernation where the sleeping bird lowers its heart and metabolic rate by as much as 95 percent. A bird in this state will actually use nearly 50 times less energy than it would if awake. The bird's body temperature goes way down too, just enough to maintain life.

I hope the birds have returned to your house. I've been asking people all over town if they've seen any hummingbirds yet. As of May 9, my count has been exactly three. I've had one on my back feeder and two friends have each spotted one. I guess these little guys knew enough not to show up here on their normal date of April 15. And to think some people refer to them as bird brains!

Elaine Cerny has gardened most of her life, starting in 4-H. Since then, she has always kept a garden of some sort, growing everything from fruits and vegetables to flowers and house plants. She has belonged to garden clubs in three states and is an active member of the River City Gardeners Club in Post Falls.