crocuses

Cabin fever is a colloquial expression that means different things to different people. Wikipedia defines it as a claustrophobic reaction that takes place when a person or group is isolated and/or shut in a small space, with nothing to do for an extended period. Cabin fever describes the extreme irritability and restlessness a person may [...]

This has been a very mild fall. We've had the occasional skin-of-the-teeth frost, which means some frost on the back lawn, but not enough to touch the plants in a raised bed, or the stone floor of the front porch, or the back deck, which is a floor above ground level. As a result, a [...]

How do you decide that spring has finally arrived? What signs tell you that the wait is over? At our old house, seeing the leafless branches of the trees on the hillside turn red from swelling buds was our certain sign that spring had arrived. It was confirmed by coltsfoot blooming and peepers peeping. While [...]

This is the second spring in our new garden. It takes time for plants to build up strength and multiply and consequently early spring/late mud season bloom here looks sparse. But each leaf is soaking up sunshine and storing food that will make next year's bloom, and the slow-to-warm spring that we have been enduring [...]

I enjoy displaying seasonal photos in the sidebar on my website and have been doing so for a couple of years now. It frustrated me that I couldn't easily caption them or credit the photographer. I finally decided I would do a post every month highlighting these photos. So, here we go:These daffodils are descendants [...]

In my previous post on crocuses in the lawn, I explained why I chose the site I did. It had southern exposure, so the snow melted early there, and was near enough to the driveway so that anyone arriving would be sure to see them. So this site was perfect to satisfy my emotional goal [...]

Yes, it's true. The fall-blooming crocus I wrote about for last month's Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day are still blooming. Some of the pale ones came up and are trying to bloom, thanks to a series of unseasonably warm days. The leaves of the pale ones emerge simultaneously with the flowers, so all the grass-like crocus [...]

Crocuses in the lawn were not originally in my garden plans for this year. I knew I wanted to dig a lot of daffodils from my old garden and I would be replanting them in the fall. I suspected I would not have time to plant all those daffs and crocuses besides. (My suspicions were [...]

I am always looking for ways to extend the bloom season later into the fall and earlier into the spring. I had planted some Crocus speciosus at my old garden intermingled with some colchicum, thinking they would bloom together. Wrong! The crocus bloomed later. I took advantage of that fact here at the new house, [...]