Flowers

February 22, 2011

14 Comments

I Need a Shot of Spring Today

Do you become absolutely insufferable through the last dregs of winter? Do you cry, bitch, and moan that spring will never come and you will not make it out alive, not this time? Well then you and I are in the same boat my friend, and this post is for you.

Last April I spoke at the Drawn and Quarterly bookstore in Montreal to promote my book, Grow Great Grub. While there, I took the opportunity to visit my favourite botanical garden, the Montreal Botanical Gardens. If you’d like to see images of the gardens and greenhouse at different times of the year, I have an archive of images from past trips. You can not visit Montreal without visiting the garden!

Magnolia trees in bloom. Enough said.

I love the way the hardy sedum trails over the hard edges of the concrete border, and the little muscari flowers that are popping up within it.

Grecian Thistle (Ptilostemon afer). My love for thistles is expanding.

Leave a comment

February 14, 2011

Comments Off

A Little Colour for Valentine’s Day

Narcissus cantabricus in my friend Barry’s greenhouse last month. Here’s what was blooming in his greenhouse last year around this time.

Comments Off

January 31, 2011

9 Comments

Winter Colour

Two of my oxalis plants are blooming and at least one more has buds that are on the way. First up is Oxalis obtusa ‘Buttercup’.

Here’s a photo of the plant, back in November when it was still in the process of emerging from dormancy.

I used to keep the oxalis in my unheated porch, but had to move them into the basement under lights when pots started to freeze. It’s still chilly down there (they like some cold), but I think it was the lights that prompted this big wave of blooms.

Leave a comment

January 19, 2011

7 Comments

I Need a Little Colour Today

I was saving this photo, taken last May, for a larger piece on growing broom (Genista lydia), but the greyness today has really brought my energy level down to barely subsistence level. I’m practically in a coma at my desk.

I need colour! And here it is.

Leave a comment

January 18, 2011

14 Comments

Is This Green Enough for You?

I promise this will be my last amaryllis post of the season, if only because I am fresh out of blooming amaryllis to write about. Well, that’s not entirely true. The ‘Nymph’ (or ‘Sydney’ or who knows what anything is anymore since nearly all of my bulbs came misidentified) has a second stalk that will open in the next few days. I promise not to write about it unless it bursts open and spills out a fountain of loose change. Or talks.

Anything is possible at this point.

I know, I know. I’m kidding no one but myself. One day next week the light will hit the new bloom just so and within hours there will be a post. Apologies in advance.

Some of you complained that ‘Green Dragon’ wasn’t really green, it was more or less white with some hints of green in it. I disagree, it was green enough for me, but whatever… Let’s not fight about it. (p.s. You’re wrong.) Instead, I present to you ‘Evergreen’ a green flower that I think we can all safely agree is green.