More Snow! Where's Spring?

I had big plans to work in the garden this weekend, but we had another four inches of snow last evening! I can see my daffodils, however, peeking through the layer of leaf mulch in the front yard.

I'll distract myself this weekend at the Seattle Garden and Flower Show. I'm busy reading about gardens and permaculture and the perennials I'm going to buy. Patience, patience...

My February Garden

My garden is a blank canvas this year, and while the February garden looks dormant, there is a whole universe of creatures and activitity teeming below the surface of the soil. My second batch of compost goes into raised bed #2 next weekend, and a third batch will be started. The seeds have arrived, and I will have four Three Sisters gardens. I put leaves on the area between the raised beds to kill the grass so I can lay down gravel paths for easier access to the beds for both me and the soaker hoses that will be coming from the rain barrel.

I bought my Orchard Mason Bees this afternoon at Flower World. They will be in the refrigerator until mid-March, and when the temperature rises and remains above 55 degrees, I will take them outside and put them into their tiny bee 'condos' until they hatch. I'm also looking for a couple of batches of ladybugs this year, as they will eat non-beneficial pests.

Books are being read, garden plans being drawn, and dreams of my garden dance in my head!

A Bag of Primroses

At the grocery store yesterday, they were selling primroses planted in a durable plastic bag to hang on a fence or on the front door. I grabbed one, admiring the profusion of color common to these wonderful first plants of spring. Don't they look great on my blue door?

White Hothouse Tulips

All year long, I am fortunate to find tulips at the florist or the grocery store. They are my favorite flower, and I always have a fresh bouquet of white ones on my living room coffee table. This week was no exception--I gathered together three bunches of the lovely flowers and prepared the crystal vase that holds them.

They set the pristine and tranquil tone of my home, and remind me that Kelly's neighborhood tulip patch will soon sprout from the dormant soil of the winter and greet us at the entrance to our neighborhood in early Spring. Until then, my tulips adorn the table and perhaps gaze out at the turning season, ready to welcome their hardy outdoor family members.

Amaryllis--A Flower and a Shepherdess

The name Amaryllis is taken from a shepherdess from Virgil's pastoral "Eclogues". The species was introduced into cultivation at the beginning of the eighteenth century. They reproduce slowly either by bulb division or seeds, and have gradually naturalized from plantings in urban and suburban areas throughout the lower elevations and coastal areas in much of the West Coast of the USA since these environments mimic their native South African habitat.

I received an Amaryllis bulb for Christmas from one of my former employees at work. I have never had an amaryllis during the dark winter months, but heard from others how beautiful the forced blooms are during the darkest time of the year.

I placed the bulb in the potting mixture that came with the bulb, put it in a south-facing window on December 26, and waited. About three weeks ago, the shoots from the bulb were about 8 inches tall--in just three weeks, they are now 24 inches high, and have red blossoms half-opened. They are beautiful--I can't imagine that I have not grown one before this!

This brilliant profusion of floral parts reminds me that spring is only 6 weeks away.