Why Now, Flowers?

Everything's bustin' out. The redbud is out full. The forest is a haze of filmy green and rust and red. Deep within, newly arrived hooded warblers, ovenbirds and wood thrushes are singing. The birches are suddenly leafing and hanging in yellow catkins. I've started sneezing. It's spring in southeast Ohio!

And it is DELICIOUS.

And it's high summer in the greenhouse. I could have used a few of these blossoms in November! December! January! Why now, flowers?

I call this Abutilon "Sportin' Life," for its fabulous sport branch that makes yellow and sometimes pied flowers. Wahoo! what a lucky chance brought me this plant. I bought it at the end of the season last summer and carried it over in the greenhouse. One thing I've learned about abutilons (sometimes called flowering maples) is that they lurve having their heads cut off. Cut off their heads and they grow 20 more and bust out in blossoms. Quickly, too. 

Fuchsia "Gartenmeister Bonstedt" is goin' coo-coo. I need to divide it soon, get my shade garden going! With the more intense sunlight, it's getting darker foliage and flowers. Yum. What a wonderful, giving plant it is. Keeps blooming all winter long, and goes nuts outside, getting up to 3' tall if you give it enough room in its planter.

Quite the show of reds in gerania. I will be looking for my favorite variegated salmon "Frank Headly" this spring. I miss him so. He died in the big freeze two Novembers ago.

Oh the Path. You are going to kill me when those big fat buds open to 7" saucers all at once. You know that, though. I can hear you snickering. Planning my demise. I spent an hour staring at other Cajun hibiscus hybrids on Logee's website the other day. Lusting after them. But they are big plants. Really big plants. And they're aphid magnets. But ohh. I'm telling you if they were fragrant I'd be doomed. I'd have to build a bigger greenhouse.

I thought I'd be eco-friendly and buy wooden plant markers. I wrote on them in Sharpie marker and the damn things just rotted. Too eco-friendly if you ask me. Now I have no idea what my little mini gerania are called any more because I can't read the names.  I'll have to rename them. How about "Sadie?"

There's my beautiful variegated agave from Lori on the right. She sent it to me in the mail after the greenhouse freeze. 

Best part? The lettuce, tomatoes, tomatillos, and cucamelons are up! Wahoo! Now I wish I'd planted them earlier. Not January 19, but a couple of weeks earlier. Ah well. I got to it as soon as I could. Yes, I used wooden markers here, but I only need to be able to read them long enough to plant them out. May 5 or so. Going to plant some "Blue Point" zinnias soon. But they grow so fast I know I'll be sorry if I plant them too soon.

That ravishing cool pink geranium is a dwarf called "Rosina Read." I've had her for probably 15 years. Obviously pretty cold-tolerant, since she lives on the floor of the greenhouse. Gerania love a hot day and a cold night, and she gets that.

Why now, flowers? Because spring is the time for happy overload.

Bring it on. I've been starved for color. But a color junkie never gets enough.