This past week , my garden has live a 70º switching in atmospheric condition . with -8º last weekend , which arrived along with a rash , to torrential downpours yesterday , which fall with boom , lightning and temperatures the nudged the 60º mark . Not the best conditions for plants for such shift key in temperatures ca be most detrimental to woody plants , alpine and bonsai wintering over in frozen containers , and with perennials who just need to sleep under a abstruse blanket of snow over the winter . But a January thaw can be welcome , especially to those of us who must inflame a nursery .
feed the bird rest an substantive task throughout the fall and wintertime , rainfall , snow or radiance , for this temperature transformation are unpredictable . Birds are not transmigrate in midwinter , rather , they move their populations around based on useable food sources , and during this record break cold undulation , I was reminded of the risk involved when food beginning are lean – a deal of American Robins arrive – a great flock with nearly 50 individuals fly into a neighbour cedar plantation , their first selection for berries during these wintertime months .
Not all robins migrate south , late , thousands remain here in the New England area , often congregating in vast numbers in swamps and rural areas where they can find their favorites nutrient sources – berries and insects . As coke flies in and heap up deeply , these raft are becoming despairing , assay out most any source for fruit or berries . The flock that come here mid hebdomad , is now gone , after three day of dining on Cedar berries , then strike on to American Bittersweet vines , which has fruited high in our Hemlock ( Tsuga canadensis ) boundary line , then devouring the majestic berries on some of our Callicarpa bush , which patently provided more confidence , for they then flew up to our kitchen windowpane as we eat up breakfast to pluck Ilex verticilata , our native Winter Berry , from the branch I had placed into the windowpane boxes as Christmas decorations . just inch from where we were have our chocolate .
This seemed like the pure prison term to start bringing out the large heads of dry out helianthus , jam packed with plump seeded player , which I grew last summer , and then piece and dry on the back porch . I think a few instinctive American originate sunflower seeds might be a nice treat on these coldest of days .
As this week progressed , the temperature mellowed , and by Friday , even though we had more snow , the weekend proved to be much affectionate , if not unseasonably so , which excited me , as we were hosting our yearly American Primrose Society meeting and lunch along with a nursery spell . As things sometimes go , we had to prorogue our get together until next weekend , as the roadstead were still frozen in Vermont , New Hampshire and New York , do driving here for those who needed an early departure , unsafe .
Naturally , the greenhouse had never look well – with most of my camellia ’s peaking in bloom = flower that will be only a memory board by next workweek . Is n’t that how it goes ? So here are some photos of what guests missed – three camellias each with over 15 flowers open at the same metre – that NEVER happens around here ! It also remind me that I am really going to have to scratch around for camelia to inscribe in the New England Camellia Society show in March , as most of mine will be long gone .
On a good note , I did recover somePrimula obconicaat our local market place this weekend – always a treat , for this wintertime blooming primula species is not ordinarily carried by many florist or greenhouses . I always finger as if I am rescuing these plants , as it seems no one knows what they are any longer , or can appreciate their more sbtle colors and sweetness when sell against their dwarf , lustrous and colorful tribe ( those diminished primrose acaulis types in 4 inch pots , which are impossibly difficult to keep alive indoors and add up in the worst semblance conceivable – like sulpher scandalmongering , grape purple and ancestry red ) .
Primula obconica is different . Sure , there was a time when they fell out of favor and some multitude are allergic to the primulin in the hairs on fuzzy leafed varieties , but newer selection have multiply much of this out . This is an old classic from the past , and I urge you to try and grow one for a season ( then dispose of it ) . I have such a fondness for this plant , and tend to grease one’s palms all of them whenever I see them for sale in January . If only our wholesalers would grow some of the awe-inspiring selections I determine in Japan carried by Sakata source , but I ca n’t sound off about the pots I find this weekend , after all , it ’s been about 3 years since I have been capable to find any in the marketplace .
This cool -loving pot plant life makes a fine specimen – I report mine into clay pots as soon as I bring them home , being certain not to disturb its root ball . I then place it in the coolheaded greenhouse , as these plants necessitate winter sunshine , and the bright luminosity will enhance the bloom colors . I then fetch them indoors for a week at a time , to live on a cool , bright window sill . Yeah , it ’s a blanched fly trap indoors , but in the nursery , it provide lots of natural spring - like color , just when I require it . Indoors , just hose the leaf off in the sink once or twice a week with warm piss , and never allow it to dry out , and you may enjoy its blooms well into March or even April .
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