Saturday, February 06, 2016

Cyclamen

The cyclamen are in full bloom in our grass right now. The primroses won't be far behind, unless we have a freeze. But that seems unlikely in the foreseeable future. I talked to one of the grape growers out in the vineyard yesterday and he was shaking his head about the fact that we haven't had any freezes. Just a few mornings at -1ºC or colder, he said, would be all we'd need. I don't know if that's about killing pests or putting the vines into dormancy or what. Maybe it's a little of both.

Little groups of cyclamen come up here and there in the grass.

Soon I will be outside making things ready for spring. Some low shrubs need to be trimmed back, old flower beds need to be cleaned up, etc. I'm still waiting for the garden crew to come and prune back two apple trees. They flaked out on me last year, for which they apologized profusely. This year they said they'd come at the end of January. I guess I forgot to ask them which year.

7 comments:

  1. You do need to ask which year....no matter where you live!
    When I lived in Scotland, the new landlady of our pub was all excited about the new oak bar that she'd ordered from a joiner...August he said!
    And it was delivered in August, too....but five years later...her excitement had worn off a tad by then....
    Still didn't stop us from having a grand craic to wet the bar top!!

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  2. "End of January" in contractor talk means "anytime after January ends." I'm impressed you got a profuse apology about last year. That's unheard of!

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  3. Now there's a reason to miss the days of freezes: killing the pests! We're STILL picking bugs off our plants.

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  4. Holy cow, you've already got something blossoming!? Wonderful! We've got about 1/3 of an inch of the shoots of daffodils poking up, and I was amazed to see that.

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  5. OMB, FLOWERS! it's still winter here and we still have remnants of the 30 inch snowfall from 2 weeks ago.

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  6. Cyclamens are such magical little flowers, and I love that you have them growing wild instead of in carefully tended florist pots, as they are here. Daffodils are coming up here in Western NC, but still below freezing at night.

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  7. tim, I hope I don't have to wait 5 years!

    carolyn, this guy is usually good, and we have him back every year and pay him promptly, so...

    mitch, and, unfortunately, so are we.

    judy, it seems early, but I don't think it is. I've looked back at prior years and the cyclamen are usually up in early to mid February.

    anne marie, I'm not surprised at that. Here's hoping you get a thaw soon!

    emm, we have daffs coming up as well.

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