I was working in the garden the other day and turned my back on the hostas.

When I turned back to them again, I swear the spikes had grown an inch and begun to unfurl.

That's how fast things grow in April in our Zone 7. A couple of warm days and you don't recognize your garden. My Japanese ferns have appeared out of absolutely nowhere!

Now there is just the garden tool I need to prove my point.

Elizabeth Licata, who blogs on the very popular Garden Rant, writes about a time-lapse garden video camera, and she describes it as a as a charmingly extravagant garden tool we'd love to have.

At $160, it certainly is!

Sold by Hammacher Schlemmer, it takes photos from as close as 20 inches, to show an individual flower develop, to as far away as a 54-inch field of view, to show your whole garden emerge.

It can take up to 18,000 pictures, every 5 seconds up to every 24 hours, for as long as four months. 

Go to the company's Web site, and you can watch a video of what I think is an African violet emerge.

Photo courtesy of Hammacher Schlemmer.