My Gardens in February

The Flower Garden

Winter is NOT my favorite time of the year. I become kind of hermit-like. I wrap myself in layers and cozy up to a fire in the fireplace as much as possible when home. I do spend time looking out the window at the garden. This is the view from one of the family room windows.

The same window affords a view of the wisteria on the greenhouse, which is a resting place for birds. One day I spotted this Black-eyed Junco.

And through the bay window in the family room, I also saw this cowbird taking shelter in one of the bird feeders.

Yet, despite the winter weather, I still have to venture out to the garden just to make sure I’m not missing anything.

As mentioned in my previous post, I love to see the pods, dried flowers and cones in the garden. This is a dried passion flower pod. Should have clipped this off and placed the seeds where I wanted them. Instead I left it on there and seeds scattered everywhere. Now I have passion flower vines popping up all over the flower garden!

And even though it was cold to me, it was still in general a mild winter for us. The daffodil leaves popping out in February were a sure sign of that.

This dove enjoyed the warm winter sunshine on a birdbath that I had gotten from a friend of mine.

It was even warm enough for Molly to make a few appearances on the screened-in back porch. She is like me and hates the cold weather. Her sister, Izzy, on the other hand, could be found snoozing on her chair on the porch in the bitter cold.

The Kitchen Garden

Obviously, not much went on in the kitchen garden in February. Just some wilted leeks and kale.

The Flower Garden in January 2016

I have to admit that I find dried flowers, pods and cones fascinating. They are just as interesting as flowers in full bloom, just in a different way. During the winter, I would bundle up and trek out to see what was happening in the garden.

The paper-like flowers of dried hydrangeas look like they could blow away with the slightest breeze...and sometimes they do.

I had Japanese Irises for years before I noticed the dried pods. Now they are probably my favorite pod in the garden. 

The pods hold onto snow as if they are saving it up for a snowball fight. 

Dried coneflowers can look very different depending on if they have lost all of their needle-like bits or not. Here they are without them.

Here they are with them, capped in snow.

Dried aster flowers in the flower garden.

And dried aster flowers in a pot on the front porch, topped with snow.

There is something sad, yet beautiful, in finding bits of dried plants here and there in the yard in winter.

As mentioned in my previous post, there was some snow in January, although not as much as in some previous years.

And then there was this...

Had to make sure to take care of my bird friends during the winter. People find this surprising, but the squirrels never try to climb to my feeders. They hang out under them and wait for the birds to drop seeds. I also make sure to leave them a few on the ground just to keep them happy.

The Kitchen Garden in January 2016

January was so long ago, so I have to try to remember here...but there wasn’t much going on in the Kitchen Garden in January at that time anyway. What I do remember is that we were really late getting a killing frost. It finally came late December of 2015 or early January 2016. Not much snow to speak of compared to other years in January, but there was some.

Before the snow...

Then after the snow...

Another angle before the snow...

Then a similar angle after the snow...

Mr. Wiggles wasn’t too happy about the snow, but at least his head wasn’t buried.

Well, at least not until later...

Greenhouse in January

Well, at least I am finally on 2016, even though I am still behind with my posts. It’s progress, right?

My Candelabra Aloe (Aloe arborescens) blooms in the winter every year. It is something I look forward to. 

 
I have been talking about needing to repot it for at least a year now. It is way too big and unwieldy for the pot it is in. It actually fell on top of me when I was in the greenhouse watering one day.

I am ashamed to admit that I bought this hanging basket of succulents from Home Depot, or maybe it was Lowe’s, about two years ago. It still looks great!

Jade and succulents in a vertical planter.

Kokedamas that I made last year are still looking nice. I have these in the window by the door so that I can see them from the family room.

Up-To-Date Photos On My Instagram

I may be seriously behind with my garden posts on my blog, however, I post about a photo a day to Instagram, which gives a real-time view of what is going on in my garden. You don’t have to be on Instagram to see the photos, you can just click on the link below and view the photos on your computer if you prefer. Or if you’re on Instagram, follow me! I am also on Twitter. Anything I post to Instagram I also post to Twitter with a link to the Instagram page. So if you prefer Twitter, you can follow me there.

My Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/daffodilsanddaydreams/

My Twitter page: https://twitter.com/krbower

My Gardens in December 2015

December was warm considering it was supposed to be winter. We still hadn’t had a really big killing frost.

The Kitchen Garden in December 2015

Sparse, but still a few things were growing in the kitchen garden in December, due to the warm weather. I have never had as much growing this late in the season before.

 Arugula, Rainbow Chard, and Leeks.

Kale ‘Redbor.’

Rainbow Chard and Dill.

Parsley...thriving!

More Parsley, Sorrel, and Garlic Chives.

Garlic Chives and Sorrel.

The Flower Garden in December 2015

Foggy mornings were somewhat common in the garden in the warmth of December.

It was warm enough for a yellow rose or two to still be blooming!

And daffodils thought it was already spring.

There was even mint still growing outside the back door – enough to make a couple mojitos.

Also outside the back door, Oregano, Thyme, and Sage, were still green – barely touched by frost at all.

But no mistake, it WAS December.

The Christmas Ferns had their fine greenery for Christmas, hence the name.

Winnie watched over the garden, as always.

I put the leftover pumpkins from Halloween and Easter out in the garden for the squirrels to munch on. Usually they devour them, but this time they really weren’t interested.

The neighbor’s cats continued to take advantage of the warmer weather.

As did my cats!