Holiday Bulbs Giveaway

Holiday Bulbs Giveaway

bulbs holidays

Amaryllis - picture courtesy of Longfield Gardens
If you are the type of person who heads right to the buffet table as soon as you arrive at a party, here’s what’s on the table.

The good folks at Longfield Gardens set up a nice buffet, I mean giveaway, of a Winter Gift Kit, featuring amaryllis or paperwhite bulbs, plus a rare bulb called Scilla madeirensis.

Leave a comment below to enter

Enjoy each flower as it blooms

Enjoy each flower as it blooms

bulbs weather

Crocus speciosus

I like to think if you blinded folded me and lead me gently to the center of my garden on any given day of the year, and then took off the blindfold, I could look around and tell you about what time of year it was, give or take a week or two.

Today, I'd be off by a few weeks because this autumn crocus is blooming and I think it's early.

I usually look for the autumn crocus,

A magical place

A magical place

bulbs spring

I can think of no place more magical than a garden, where every hoe and trowel is a magic wand.

The magic is there in each petal of each flower as it opens up. It's there in the unfurling of each new leaf.

At times the magic seems to take place in slow motion. We wait and wait, and then in the blink of an eye, in just the second we turn our heads, it happens.

Flowers are blooming everywhere

And the lawn began to bloom

And the lawn began to bloom

bulbs lawns

For the joy of that first moment when I stepped out the back door and saw all the crocuses blooming in the lawn, it was worth it.

It was worth spending hours planting all those crocus bulbs last fall, and the two falls before that.

It was worth enduring the cold, wind, ice, and snow of winter, including the last snow just ten days ago that covered the back lawn with six inches of snow.

It

Searching for spring blooms does not help your posture

Searching for spring blooms does not help your posture

bulbs spring

The snowdrop bloomed when I wasn't looking.

If one could bring forth blooms in the garden by simply staring at the poor little plants until the flowers burst forth, I would be living in a floral paradise right now.

I spent many hours today (it was probably just a few minutes) hunched over looking through the leaf litter and mulch at the tiny leaves of crocuses and irises coming up, hoping to

The Tale of the Amaryllis and Other Bulbs to Force in the Wintertime

The Tale of the Amaryllis and Other Bulbs to Force in the Wintertime

bulbs indoor gardening

Miniature Amaryllis

My amaryllis bulbs, including the miniature amaryllis bulbs,  are all up and in various stages of bud and bloom.

The miniature amaryllis is pretty but isn't the variety I ordered. So I wrote the company this morning to see what they can do. My first choice is to get the variety I ordered, but it is sold out.

But I've ordered from this company for years with great success

Forcing Blooms in Winter

Forcing Blooms in Winter

bulbs winter

Forcing blooms in winter.

I think each year I won't bother with amaryllis and other flowers forced into winter bloom.  After all, I've grown them in the past, I know what they look like, so why grow them again?

Why grow them again?  If you think that's an actual question, then you aren't an actual gardener and you can just mosey right along now to some other website about "plastic flowers are