On the way

Spring is on the way. Everything has that feeling of melting that it gets in spring. And, best of all, the birdsong outside our windows has changed. Sure, there are still starlings and jays and crows, but sometimes a new character pulls by. I'm going to have to learn more about how to recognize birds by their calls. It's a joy to hear the new transients.

Tulips in the office

My office tulips were just about to open when I left on Friday (typical!). They seem to have been given a little too much booze; they are very short. The flower is not really above the leaf. On Monday I'll try to use a real camera to take a picture rather than the crappy photoBooth cheat shown above. They don't get any real sun, but they do get indirect sunlight and nominal full-spectrum light when I remember to flick a switch.

Snow day

We're having a snow morning (oh please, please, PLEASE let it be extended to the full day!) and I am reminded that March 4th is the big bloom day check. Earlier in the week, when the pine boughs were mostly exposed, I peeked underneath them and it seemed that there were a number of little shoots poking up. Now, of course, they're under several feet of snow, but March 4th is two scant weeks away, so they'd better get a move on! Maybe as I shovel, I'll give them some motivational talking-to.

More cheating

The crocuses in my office are done now, and so I popped to the shop and dropped another 4 bucks on 3 tulips. They're supposed to be yellow, too. I fished through quite a number of pink ones to get myself a yellow set. I don't know why I'm so anti-pink. Probably it's just that I'm violently pro-yellow when it comes to little pots of spring to enliven my workspace. Why would I go for any colour but that of the sun?

I'm especially in need of my spring fling because it's gone all grey again. We had a week of lovely bright sunshine (and bitter cold). Unfortunately, we're not getting pots and pots of snow like some of the Atlantic coast to the south of us. We're just getting plain old wintery weather. I can't complain endlessly about the little dribs and drabs of snow, though. I'm glad I'm not digging out 1m of snow. As you can see, our snow amounts to so little that even a pigeon can put a footprint right through it.

In other cheating news, I had a terrible trip to the local seed store over the weekend! What a bummer. They over-charged me by $15 on a $40 bill (did they think I wouldn't notice?) and were really quite evilly reluctant to correct their "mistake". They took a little pile of seed packets, found the most expensive, and scanned that in 4 times instead of actually scanning in all the packets. When I complained that they hadn't scanned in the packets correctly, they then scanned in each packet individually without removing the 4 times scan charge! Humph. When I finally got out, I was very angry indeed. And needless to say, I didn't complete my purchase. So I'm looking for a good on-line mail order source for seeds because I can't trust the local rotters. It really did get me down. Still does.

cheating

That's as good a picture as I can supply, I'm afraid. It's of my cheating flowers. I plopped $4 on a little pot of forced yellow crocuses, and it was well worth it. I haven't done anything to make them happen except spend four dollars. I know I KNOW I should be buying bulbs in bulk and forcing them myself, but I haven't, so this is what I get. It makes me happy to see yellow flowers in my office on a cold January day.

Even if they are a cheat.

Goodbye to 2009

Well, it seems like the cool kids are all doing a year-in-review and so I thought I'd try one, too. Part of the point (well, to be honest, the main point) of having a blog is to have a record of my thoughts, plans, discoveries and mistakes to refer back to later. If I don't refer back to it, what good is it?

Last year, as this year, the Christmas tree was cut up and spread around the flowerbeds just in time. As I write, there is a good 20 cm at least of snow already on the ground, and the spattered hiss of freezing rain against the windows tells me it will have a charming ice coat by the time tomorrow rolls around. We put the boughs down on Wednesday, in -15 C weather.

I kept parsley on the windowsill last winter. I don't have any herb plants on the go at the moment, but the basil grew so obligingly indoors, I should really make time to plant some now. And chives, too. I have yet to have any luck with them, but I do like them so much I should try again.

In March, the lovely, wonderful, satisfying and joyous first crocuses appeared. It's still winter here in March and the spring lasts well into June so that little burst of summery colour in the beds is like sanity popping out of the dark earth. I hope that this year lets them repeat their performance. I didn't notice any zw. buds coming out of the ground, but the eager little bulb irises (Joyce) were already up and at them before the weather turned cold.

In April, the bulb plants continued to bring me joy while the herbs on the windowsill gave me a sense that I was actually growing things; being a gardener. I didn't plant anything indoors for the greater garden like I did in 2008. I admitted that I kill maple babies, but in fact I didn't declare all-out war until later, in May.

The maple tree itself came out in bud in May and filled the world with a green floral rain. The front yard came into its own. The various hostas and lilies poked out of the ground and the shrubs and bushes started new growth for a new year. At our vegetable plot, we planted lettuce and onions and radishes, beans and broccoli. The lettuce was a huge hit. The onions mostly stayed where they were planted and the broccoli was disgusting. It grew well and tasted awful.

In June I began to retreat from the garden into the rest of my life and I didn't come back again until it was much too late. However, I did get to see some irises and the bushes on the side and the delphinium. I also got to celebrate the coming of lavender flowers to my patch which smelled wonderful in June and continued to produce scented spears well into November. There's a successful plant!

In July the allium finally opened up and the all the rest of the herbs caught up with the lavender. In the front, the mystery yellow flower and the astilbe came out and cast their little puddles of colour for me.

In August all sorts of things happened in the garden, but I didn't observe any of it. In September, we cleaned things up, but I didn't have wonderful new things coming out of the ground because I had so neglected everything earlier. The garden was depressing for a while there and not just to me. Passers-by would drop their litter in it because it was so obviously uncared-for.

We cleaned the plot up in October, leaving our uneaten spring onions to hopefully become large keeping onions. The tomato plants were all tragic dry skeletons thanks to a nasty blight which swept through our allotments. We carefully disposed of the remains in the garbage instead of the compost, but I suspect we'll be seeing that fungus for a few years to come.

In November the leaves fell and the Christmas cactus started to bud and bloom. It kept blooming through December. In fact, although most of its pink flowers have made their way to the floor, there are still a few buds looking like they might yet open and extend the blooming further. I learned that the way to accomplish this magnificence is through negligence: No watering in October leads to fantastic blooming in December.

We got a Christmas tree and cut it up and set the boughs out to protect the bulbs from the changeable weather and instantly, the weather changed. It's nice to know that in the garden, at least, the year really is cyclical.

I just couldn't

I just couldn't let another whole month go by without putting a single word down, but nothing has happened worth reporting.

In fact, that's not quite true. I did get the book Bulb, by Anna Pavord and I've been enjoying it immensely.