Thursday, January 24, 2008

Remember those Red Amaryllis

The two pots of red amaryllis are pretty much in full bloom. A nice bright spot for a wintry day. We still have another pot to come.

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Sunday, January 20, 2008

Snowy Sunday

This is a very lazy sort of day, with a little snow coming down.
I don't think there is supposed to be any great amount. A couple of our red Amaryllis are just coming into bloom. I took a quick pic this morning. A bright spot for a dull day.This one in front of the window is still "budded". Not a very good pic.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

I see from Jodi DeLong that the monthly "bloom day" has rolled around. I will have to mostly go from memories for this one. We have a couple of Amaryllis that are just cracking their buds, and a few Buddleia cuttings with buds, and some stray bloom on one Christmas cactus. Not too inspring! The little Buddleia are from a cultivar named 'White Bouquet'. We also have a few from our purples. Each year we do some cuttings as insurance against the vagaries of Buddleia survival. Buddleia are also quite easy from seed.....growing and blooming by late summer of the first year(assuming an early start). We are having a mild snowy day, with everything covered in a fresh cover of snow.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

January Thaw

This last week has been quite a change from our very wintry days. Snow has literally melted before our eyes. From the very snowy views of the previous days we go to bare ground.
We always have a "meltdown" of snow from our roof....
.... more like an avalanche many times. We have had the progression from Ice & Snow .....
..... to Mud and snow. Lots of dirty footprints to contend with. Even the pond has a bit of surface showing.
Here is the back view as of Saturday.
A walk around was quite doable without wading through much snow. It is interesting that the further back we go the more snow there is. It isn't a bad thing to still have a reasonable blanket over the rhodie nursery beds.It makes it easier for Jake on his old arthritic legs!....not to mention Bill!There are lots of greenery bits in evidence...this moss being most vivid. The rhododendron buds were looking very perky, and we can only hope we don't get too much extreme weather that might "do them in" before spring.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Our muse has had a sabbatical

The winter onslaught of uselessness has come, and I can't say is entirely gone. It is encouraging to detect a lengthening of the days.
December came and went, as did Christmas, with not much in the way of noteworthy events.
We had several nice visits from Ava, who has accomplished the walking process " big time".
Snow presented itself on a number of occasions.
The "ditched "plants were appropriately buried.

We can take lessons from 'Slayer'.One small accomplishment was the preparation of the Rhododendron Society Seed Exchange list, both the "hard copy", and the online version will soon be in force.

We have also sent out a few seed samples from our home "saved seeds".