Update: Crocus, March 4

Well, after a day of sunshine and sub-zero temperatures, I could dig through the snow and pine boughs to reveal..... OK, they're not blooming. They're not actually even budded, yet (except maybe one of them). BUT, they are there. They are up above the frozen ground. I took that picture using the flash on my camera because there isn't quite enough light in the evening to capture them, but even though it's -4 and that's the hottest it's been all day, those sweet little crocuses are doing their damndest to herald the spring.

Who's next?

Traditionally, I think the pickwicks are up immediately after the zwanenburg bronzes. However, this is what the most mature of the pickwicks looks like.

And this is what I found in the front this morning. I think we've got a winning snowdrop, here. I should put snowdrops in the side; they'd be up and at 'em in February!

By the way, I took those photographs through sleet, which had previously been hail and will likely be snow later. Do I care? No. It is spring ... the crocuses don't lie.

Hello, yellow!

There have been hints of things growing once again in the side and front yards. Little tiny bud-noses poke out of the ground here and there.

Some are silly optimists who spring out of the earth in the fall and then spend the winter getting abused.

Some are just starting, like the not-bent-over stalks in the photo above.

Since today is the compost collection day around here and I had seen snowdrop buds elsewhere in town yesterday, I thought I might lift a few of the xmas tree boughs and see if anyone was, y'know, maybe about to flower.

I found a lovely pale green hyacinth starting beneath the piles.

The sweary one and I have been discussing what my requirements are for the garden starting on March 4. I say: yellow showing by that day and I'm a happy lady. The wonderful early Zwanenburg Bronze don't have to be open by then but showing yellow and I'm a happy lady.

Well, I am a happy lady. It's only March 2! They've got 2 free days to frolic in what hopefully will be sunshine. It was snowing ever so lightly as I took these photos, but it's supposed to improve as the week wears on.

Welcome back, garden! I'm looking forward to a good season with you this time around.

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.

Crocus Clean-up

A chore for yesterday was to clean up the now done purple satin crocus.  Unfortunately, the flowers turn into a sort of slimy sludge.  I waited for a few days to give the flowers a chance to dry out, but it wasn't really long enough.  The remains are nasty.  

Even though they are decaying horrible gross-feeling things, once they've been bundled into a pile they revert to their earlier habit of pleasant beauty.  The little purple pile is both sad and lovely.  

The cleaned-up leaves are now interesting greenery getting lots of sunshine to serve the bulbs and make healthy flowers again next year.  

And I have purple-stained fingers and art in my garden.

Sunny Saturday Smiles

We have had a very pleasant sun-drenched Saturday, and so have the plants.I love the way the golden yellow crocuses look lit from within in the afternoon light.

Say ahhhhhh

Is it my imagination, or are these Peter Pan crocuses sticking out their tongues at me?

After the deluge

We've been having heavy rain for the last couple of days.  The predictions are for summery and glorious weather over the weekend.  That will add up to a lot of change in the garden.  

The hard rain and hail (did I mention the hail?) was more than many of the crocuses could handle.  The front purple crocus are about half done in.

The front star-like crocus look like they might all be a-gonner.

The side satin purple crocus, which were already on the way out the door before the rain started, are truly done in.  

The Blue Pearls didn't do well, but the golden yellow held up a treat.  

The weather rang the death knell for the Joyce iris.

The sunny weekend should bring out the daffodils.  I am so excited, I can almost taste it.  Of course, I wouldn't because they're toxic, but I am VERY excited about the coming of the daffs.

The first of the last

The last of the crocuses to bloom will be the white ones called Peter Pan.  The first of those will start soon and eventually crocus season will be over.

It's silly to be thinking of the passing of the crocuses right now, when so many are at their peak.  The pickwicks are all gone (except for the stray ones in the front, which are late probably because it's so much colder there and they were buried under more earth) and the Zwanenbergs have been over for ages.  But the others are still up.  Even the satin purple ones in the side are just looking tired, not actually over.  

The success of the crocuses in the front helps to prolong the crocus season and I like that very much.  I like having bunches of flowers in the front, too!    It's quite a neat trick that they do keep going so obligingly.  It's been more than 6 weeks since the first ones popped up, and I hope I'll get at least 3 weeks out of this last bunch.  I'd guess fruit blooming season doesn't last as long.  

On garden blogging

The new yellow crocuses are shining in the front yard now.  I need more yellow things in there.  That's nice.  I should make it a goal to have something blooming that's bright yellow all the time.

It got cold and grey yesterday afternoon when I went to take pictures of the garden, so I don't know if the golden yellow crocuses haven't started flowering or if they're just closed against the cold.  

I had a funny experience when I was taking the pictures above.  I popped out my front door and plonked myself down low to take the photos at a good angle and started shooting.  From the side walk, I heard a noise.  I looked over, and there was another woman, about my age, with a big camera, taking photos of the side yard.  We had a good chuckle about the coincidence (I'll confess that I didn't admit that it was actually my yard ... I am shy) and she suggested that I come around because there were some "really good ones" around the side.  When I'd finished with the pictures I wanted, I walked to the side to wish her luck and she pointed out the Joyce irises as being fantastic. 

And of course, she's right.  They are.  

I am happy to have a garden that elicits delight in strangers.  It is one of the great joys of flower gardening.  I'm not quite sure why.  There is something about sharing the pleasure of the flowers that makes it nicer.  It's part of the reason why I rarely cut flowers.  They're wonderful growing things and they're meant to be out there in the world.  I am possessive about them, sure ... don't imagine I don't mind terribly that some of the blooms get removed from their stalks by passers-by.  But part of that possessiveness stems from the fact that once someone has taken a flower, it can't be enjoyed by everyone anymore.  And in truth, a cut flower won't be enjoyed by anyone for very long.  I love looking at my flowers. I love watching them obligingly struggle out of the ground and turn into brightly coloured beauties.  I love the way they bloom and then fade and get replaced by something else.  I can't look at them all the time, though.  I spend most of my days at work and some of my weeks far afield.  It is a cheering thought that all of that loveliness isn't wasted just because I'm not nearby.  

I'm very glad I met that woman, because it made me think a little bit more about why I garden and what I think I might be getting out of it.  I can't think of what else I do that is akin to it.  I garden mostly anonymously, to provide a scenic backdrop, mostly to strangers.  I won't pretend that it's an altruistic activity, but it's possibly the most altruistic thing I do for pleasure.  

Focus on Crocus

Yesterday afternoon, while the sun was shining, I took some pictures of the crocuses.  I did it partly because it makes me happy to see them blooming and partly because when they're open, they are distinguishable in ways that they're not when they're closed.  

In fact, I missed one set of crocuses completely when I was giving the most recent update because I mistakenly identified one batch of pictures as being a second set of the same flower.  Not so.  I have two sets which are slightly blue-y white.  They're very different when they open.  (Above are the Blue Pearl and below are the starlike ones.)

There are the star-like crocus which were in last year.  I don't have their name recorded anywhere, which is a shame.  They're bluish-white on the outside.

There are the white crocus which I put in this year.  They're called Peter Pan, and I planted 24 of them.  I don't think they're up yet.  I think they're probably the ones about to emerge from the forest at the sunny side of the front.  

There are the white crocus with the blue petals, called Blue Pearl, which I also put in this year.  Their blue outside is really quite striking, despite what I wrote when I was planting them.

There are blu-ish purple crocuses, nameless, which I put in a few years ago.  

When I took the pictures, there was one yellow amid the Blue Pearls and I thought it was a rogue mis-plant (all of the bulbs look alike, don't you know).  However, this morning there are many more yellow bloomers.  They are the Golden Yellow I planted last autumn.

I notice that the labels for the Golden Yellow say EARLY as do the Blue Pearl, but the Blue Pearl definitely came out first.  Very definitely.  Some day I'll write down the order so that I might have a chance of planning.   I have a dream of having a deliberate garden, in which the blooms come in a lovely stream and there is nice leafiness all the time.  As it is, I think I get some pleasant stretches in the spring, but the rest is hopeless.  Little bursts of bloom happen here and there.  Leafiness happens in late- and midsummer when everything is weedy and leafy anyway.  Still, I like it.  

So do passers-by, which I dig.  I like having the joy spread around. 

Up-up-update

I started this post yesterday afternoon and then got distracted by cutting my finger badly while harvesting parsley.  Honestly, I am WELL past the age when people started trusting me with pointed-end scissors and I did think that I had a few years left before I got to the blunt-pointed ones.  Wrong again, I guess.  

This reminds me that I should document the indoor herbs, too.  

We went away for a quick break which is why I haven't been posting for a while.  This is opposed to the rest of the winter and spring when I just was being lazy.  Hard to believe that I really posted every day for weeks.  At any rate, the break was lovely and much-needed.

Well, we're back and the garden is looking pretty good.  Having spent the last few days being astounded by hillsides covered in daffodils, it's kind of nice to get home and find that ours haven't started yet.  Even though the daff-hillsides were amazing, it's nice to know that we haven't missed our own (albeit humble) display.

I took some photos this afternoon in the bright sunshine which has been punctuating the hailstorms.  Honestly, the weather this weekend has been weird.  And snowy.  And rainy.   

Anyway, there have been splatches of sunshine to encourage some growth.  And to give me the chance to document it.

In the front, there are our old friends the dirty snowdrops.

There is also a little patch of newer, more demure, cleaner snowdrops in the re-claimed bit.

There are pretty purply blue crocuses, thinking about opening, but maybe waiting until the weather warms up a bit.

There are pretty pale blue crocuses, following the mood of their darker compatriots.

And there is a veritable forest of things yet to come.  That's my favourite.  It's all in reclaimed ground.  There are alium, daffs, more crocus, and heaven knows what else.  I'm very pleased.

In the side, the Zwanenburgs are well and truly finished.  

The hycacinths are starting.

The daffs will be out soon.

The Pickwicks are in slightly rough shape, but still going.

The Pickwicks have been joined by the "Joyce" bulb iris.  I love these.  

There's a house on my usual lunchtime walk round which has these in its front yard and for years it was driving me nuts that there were these things that looked like irises, but grew like crocuses. I am very glad to have them in my garden now (and to know what the heck they are).

The lovely satin purple crocus are also going well.  They, too, cohabit with the Pickwicks, and I think the mating is absolutely wonderful.  I'm not responsible for it.  I wish I were capable of such planning.  

All in all, it was a welcome sight.  I love the bulbs.  I love the way that they come up in the spring without intervention on my part.  They come up before any weeds have a chance to ruin it.  They come up and shine when the sun doesn't.  What a happy thing a garden is!

Picture Post

Yesterday afternoon after I had finally faced the worst of the end-of-fiscal/academic year stuff at work, the weather turned mild and the sun came out.  Pathetic fallacy, I am a fan!

I took the opportunity to (leave work early and) take some pictures of the state of the side yard.  

We have the Zwanenburg Bronze crocuses.  They're three weeks into their flowering and they've been blasted by a couple of rough snow storms.  Some of the blooms are looking a little haggard, but they're still radiating springy glory. 

There is the patch of Pickwicks, just starting.  There is a stray pickwick on the other side of the thyme to the zwb's.  I must have dug it up at some point (I do that ALL THE TIME) and just dumped it wherever.  It's opening, too.  

There are some daffodil starts poking through and some interesting tulip-looking things.  I am quite excited about the hyacinth, which is opening up, starlike, when the weather permits.

There is still a small pool of ice in the front, but most of the bulb-filled places are clear.  Yesterday on the way home from work I saw some blooming snowdrops and early yellow (but not Zw) crocuses.  Ahhh.  Spring at last!