Thursday, March 24, 2016

Mid-March Floral Report


I was out walking Olga a couple of weeks ago when I noticed one of our neighbors was throwing away several geraniums, roots and all. They seemed perfectly healthy, so I grabbed them from the neighbor's yard waste bag, brought them home and potted them. We're already being rewarded with blossoms!


Another street find was this large lavender plant. It was sitting in its pot next to a trash can in a park. Boy was it a pain to lug that thing home. It's pot-bound so I think we'll put it in the ground.


Some sad news about our snakehead fritillary, which I photographed just last week. The squirrels ravaged it a few days later. This is what was left. I put the flowers in a vase, and gathered up the remaining bulbs and any pieces that were still whole and replanted them, putting shards of old flowerpot around the base to protect them from another raid. But the jury's out on whether it will survive.


On a happier note, our grape hyacinths are blooming like crazy. I love these things, even though they're pretty much weeds. We have loads of them in the flower beds and I've forbidden Dave from digging any of them up, which drives him crazy.


Inside, the hyacinths that our friends Adam and Tim bought for us are blooming. The house is full of their heavy, sweet scent. (And the squirrels can't get to them!)


And finally, I did move the amaryllis to our dining room windowsill, where they are out of Olga's reach and hopefully will finish their blooming cycle. You can see how I staked up that flower stalk on the right, hoping it will recover from Olga's recent rampages. As I wrote earlier, it looks like we're getting only two flower stalks this year, so I hope they both make it!

10 comments:

alphabet soup said...

Well done for re-cycling all those plants!

Ms Soup

Mwa said...

Cool. I need to get out into the garden urgently. Would be more useful than all this random knitting I've been doing...

e said...

Oh, I love your plant re-cycling and the beautiful colors. I do hope your blooms do well in the house...

Ms. Moon said...

Nothing better than finding a plant or rooting a plant or sharing a plant. I love those things! When you start doing that, you realize that the growing things gene is definitely kicking in.

ellen abbott said...

I've picked up discarded plants too. if you plant the root bound lavender in the ground you will have to soak it in water first and then gently try to disentangle the roots. you may even have to bare root it which plants don't like but can survive from. the point being if you just put in in the ground root bound it will stay root bound and will eventually die.

I have four little plants growing nicely that I got at estate sales. two are cuttings that I rooted, one is a baby bulb that was coming out from the bottom of a huge lily and the last was something I pulled up out of the hard ground.

ellen abbott said...

oh, and don't give up on the amaryllis, the other two may still bloom.

Red said...

It's always a great time to work with plants. POut an old boot at the door for Olga and she can attach that when the foxes go by.

Sharon said...

I wonder if those geraniums know how lucky they are. Silly, huh? I love all the color you have going.

jenny_o said...

I love geraniums for their hardiness and their bright, continual blooming. You have a wonderfully green thumb.

The Bug said...

Ms. Pinky isn't showing signs of blooming yet - but it's early days here. It's in the 30s today so it will be another while before we put her outside.

I love grape hyacinths - they're just so randomly lovely!