Need Joy? Come on Over!

Not that anyone needs color and light and joy right now...I thought I'd offer up a little virtual stroll through the greenhouse, just to stick our noses into a few flowers. This is what greets me when I open the greenhouse door. Needless to say I find excuses to go down there about five times a day. Hooked on it. It was a rough winter, all rain and no sun, but now that the plants are getting some sun and heat, they're exploding into blossom. 

I find this interesting. When my big hibs froze on Jan. 30, 2019 (heating failure due to frozen gas line), there were a few tiny shoots around the base of The Path's trunk that didn't die back. They have grown a little and are blooming like crazy now. I don't know if it's because they're so close to the fertilizer, but they are much the best blossoms this plant has put out. It's dopey looking but I LOVE IT.

Creole Lady is still bewitching, but she's decided to lay back to let The Path, with her dress around her ankles, take center stage. She'll kick it up a few notches when she finally gets outside in May. 

And there's a Lady in Waiting. Look at this tiny baby Creole Lady that I got in the summer of 2019! She's finally coming into her own. More flower than leaf...

Two blossoms at once is very unusual for a little cutting like this. But so gratifying. My huge Lady slumbers behind her. I absolutely love having an understudy that's small enough to carry into the house should the need arise. Like, drastically plunging temperatures, foretelling another disastrous greenhouse freeze.

This plant...I live for its blossoms.

The Thai Giant crown of thorns is just ridiculous, 3' tall and loaded with peppermint-striped flowers.

Started from a 2" long cutting taken in 2016. I have tried to take cuttings of this one but none have rooted for me. Sometimes it just works. Sometimes it doesn't. 

This little Gartenmeister was a tiny shoot that sulked all winter long, then sprang to life when it got sunny. I like to carry this plant over because I'm never sure if I'll be able to find it in the spring. 

Same for Trandshen Bonstet. That one, far as I know, you can't get anywhere but The Glasshouse Works in Stuart, Ohio. Mine is 4' tall now! Roots really well in plain water!

A volunteer impatiens peeking out from under the foliage of my willow-leaved fig. This is the magnificent tropical bonsai that froze last year, and has somehow come back. It looks like a hairy sea urchin right now, but I have faith it will make some decent branches in time.

The geraniums are just spectacular now.

Black Knight is a volcano of the darkest possible foliage and gleaming coals. 

Can't wait for Happy Thought to open its scarlet tanager-red single flowers.

Due to its interesting start in life, this Happy Thought plant has a ridiculous number of individual trunks. 

Both Happy Thought and Vancouver Centennial (shown below) have a really interesting habit of making baby plants amongst their flower heads, way up there on the end of a long stem. It's so weird. I have observed this for years and always wondered what's going on with it. Two years ago I started experimenting with trying to propagate more plants from these funny little leaf clusters. Vancouver's plantlets always got mildew and rotted away in my rooting chambers (just a clear plastic cup inverted over a pot of damp soil).  But two years ago I managed to root a tiny leaf cluster of Happy Thought, and that's the plant in the photo above. It grew painfully slowly, but it grew, and it's a fine, fine plant now.

Of course, I will keep trying because plant propagation is one of my vices.

April's Gifts

The greenhouse has once again become a place I resort to for comfort. Every plant you see here got the crap frozen out of it on January 31 when the gas well on our land froze solid. And each one came back. It's amazing!

Speaking of gifts, look at Creole Lady!! She froze solid on January 31 (read it and weep here) but look at her now!! I'm told all hibiscus need a severe cutback from time to time....well, maybe. I can tell you neither of us needed a greenhouse freeze at the end of January.

But then again...maybe I had to lose all my beautiful plants, live without them for a few weeks, to make room in my heart to say yes to Curtis on February 19. Maybe everything happens for a reason. Or maybe it's all just mindless, undirected randomosity. Some things feel as if they were guided by a higher intelligence. This thing, for one. From what heavenly cloud did you flutter down, Sugarbean?

Creole Lady, when will you flower again? That's OK. You don't have to answer. Just put out leaves and leaves. Feed yourself first.

The Path looks like a hairy stick. But it's alive, and it will be beautiful again by July, mark my words. 

The red-brown powder is dried blood. I'm trying to keep the chipmunks from chewing the leaves off my hibs INSIDE THE GREENHOUSE as fast as they grow out. Yes. That is what's happening INSIDE the greenhouse.

Thai Giant Crown of Thorns going nuts! Nothing eats a COT. They have nasty milky bitter  Euphorbia sap. I wish more of my plants had that.

Teeny Kenyan Crown of Thorns trying to keep up! I love growing these two extremes of the same species. Oh what humans can do to a plant, a dog, a chicken, a horse.

 

My friend Alan told me to dig up my big lemon verbena and put it in the basement for the winter. Well, that worked! It's delighted to be welcomed into the greenhouse and smells divine. 

Runner's tea a-coming!

My seedling impala lilies, or Adeniums, who never batted an eye at the freeze.  I can't wait to see what color their flowers will be, when they get old enough. It could take years upon years. That's most of the fun.

See the little score marks on the caudex of this one, below? Chipmunk. Climbed up to the top shelf and chewed these helpless little Adenium seedlings.

Erodium reichardii, a little alpine geranium, also weathered the freeze without losing a leaf. (The chipmunks chewed one side off it, but it grew back).

My gardenia sulked a bit after the freeze, but she is going to blow me away when she finally bursts into bloom. Every stem has a fat emerald Christmas bulb at the end.

I counted and there are 24 buds ready to pop on this plant. I keep feeding it, hoping it'll grow some more leaves on those spindly stems. But when it blooms I'll forget all about its looks. This is the plant I got for $10 on clearance last summer. It survived the freeze pretty well.

I was sure my Fuchsia "Gartenmeister Bonstedt" was a goner. But up from the root it comes!

 

As does this incredible hybrid balcony Pelargonium. Already has a flower bud forming!

It just takes time, faith, and care. That's all. 

It hasn't even been two months, and here they all come roaring back!

 A tidy shelf of color. So grateful to have my Vancouver Centennial still with me, and a new dwarf pomegranate seedling in bloom for the first time.

 

Against all expectations, my pink fuchsia Trandshen Bonstedts all came back from the root. This is one I was harboring in my house, my "plant ark." 

And then there's Happy Thought. I've missed you so. Remember my gigantic Happy Thought from last winter?? My pride and joy?? It was almost six feet across.

Well, this cutting that rooted and is blooming for the first time is all that's left of it, and I'm so, so happy I have it. I have to keep it on a pedestal inside the greenhouse or the chipmunks, hungry for anything green, will destroy it. Life is harder than it ought to be sometimes.

 

 Yesterday the chipmunk jumped onto the plant on its pedestal and clipped off some leaves, just to keep me from relaxing and enjoying my plants. Havahart will be set tomorrow. I've caught one and I'll catch this one, too.  Peanuts and peanut butter will get him.

It seems that death and destruction is always waiting when you try to grow things. There's always something trying to get at the things you love, whether it's coons and snakes after your bluebirds or deer chewing down any little tree you try to plant.  Or #$#$%$# chipmunks breaking into your greenhouse, climbing the baker's racks, and annihilating your precious plants. It's always something.  Despite it all, the plants persist, and so do we.

Another lovely thing that keeps me going: nesting bluebirds. They're building, laying, incubating, singing and tussling everywhere. This pair cannot decide which of three different boxes they want. They have spent so much time poking around. Now another pair has shown up to contest them. They could be incubating by now, but they dither instead.

 I've already got baby Carolina wrens piping in the copper bucket under my front eave! Must be a record, such an early hatch! They're trying to beat the rat snakes. If they can pull off a brood before the snakes stir, they're way ahead.

 There are now five eggs in this Carolina wren nest, placed somewhat atypically in a shallow, small slot box along the driveway. They are such clever artisans where nest building is concerned. I love those birds.

I love this little bird, too. He likes to bake his bacon on the porch and on the lawn.

It feels so good to look out the kitchen window and see a dog on the stoop. Even if it has no front legs. Papaw still gets around pretty good wifout his legs.

Figured out why Curtis smells gently of potting soil most of the time. He has dug hisself a couple little setts where he cools off when his bacon is overheated.

There's no sense getting exercised about how dirty he is. As soon as it dries, it just falls off him like rain. I try to make sure that happens outside. On this particular morning, he had an al fresco breakfast because he was raining a fine sprinkling of potting soil. If you click on this photo you can see the fallout.

Just a few things that make me happy, in a roller-coaster spring of wild oscillations in the weather and my heart.

"Baby Birds" Comes to Roost

One of four major shipment waves, executed since March 23. This was the biggest one, fer sure.
The right-hand pile is all doubles, from people who trusted they'd like the book enough to buy one as a gift! There have even been triplets, quadruplets and a few quints! And I'm going to hand-deliver a DEXtuplet set to Cambridge MA in a couple of days! Hodge wins the pickle!

I knew it would be big. I even figured it would eat about a month of my spring. And that was fine with me. But your response to the "Shop Local!" plea still exceeded expectations. My right shoulder keeps telling me so. By the time I learned to stop awkwardly skewing my right arm as I folded and taped the boxes, it was already bunged up. I was happy to get out of it without screwing up my lower back, which I did with the Fantasy Flock Jigsaw Puzzle Shipping Event. Which also exceeded expectations. 

This is All Good, as the airheads say. I know YOU know you could get my books a lot cheaper elsewhere. And I appreciate your buying from me very much. It's made a lot of things possible for us this spring. 

The whole venture has opened out beautifully, like Creole Lady does, day after gorgeous spring day. 

Just after sunrise--I love to catch her like this!

Per Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's request, we held all the books until a day before the official release date, which was April 12. I started processing orders when I finally had books delivered on March 23. It took me very nearly until April 11 to get them all signed, packed and shipped. As I would finish a wave of orders, I'd pack my car full and drive them down to Lower Salem. 

I don't lose sight of the fact that, when I'm all done with a wave of shipping, I then dump it at Miss Cynni's doorstep at the Lower Salem Post Office. And it becomes her thing to lift, sort and ship.

I try to soften the blow for both of us by taking Chet Baker along. I think it helps.

He's not your average customer. But Miss Cynni sees lots of above-average folks in her 4 hour day.



Chet Baker, however, is the only one who gets to stand on the counter.


And get kisses and a special all-natural cheezy bikkit (or three).

The books piled up in the little post office, and Cynni worked on them as she had time.

I'm afraid we made a mess of the place. There are books everywhere--under tables, and the first wave is stashed in the hall at the back of the room, so this isn't even all of them! All I can say is WOW. And THANK YOU. And look at that smile, despite it all. But who wouldn't be smiling, holding The Bacon, Hisself? If you click on the photo you can see he is doing a blep wif his tongue. Cynni came in on Saturday and Sunday, April 9 and 10, to sort and finish metering this enormous shipment. Her husband Marty came in with her, because he didn't want her picking up those boxes, which weigh anywhere from 4 to more than 20 pounds each. I am going to take the liberty of pasting a Facebook post Cynni made, because it says volumes.




And before any postal employees start wondering how I'm getting paid to work on a Sunday, I'm not. This was done on my time because I want to provide great customer service to my customers! It's not about the money for me but to keep my customers happy and keep them coming back. I love my little 4 hr office and all my customers. And for the record, since I am a 4 hr office, I don't have the title of postmistress, I am a PSE, Postal Support Employee and I love my job.

The next time you're tempted to take a swipe at the U.S. Postal Service, remember Miss Cynni, and all the terrific people out there who in many ways big and small make our everyday lives and businesses possible.



Creole Lady, the same blossom at 11 AM. Boom!



How the Post Office looked Sunday afternoon. They got'r'dun. Photo by Cynni Francis



Monday morning,  April 11, loaded into the truck for Columbus (right?) and thence to YOU, all over the country!
Photo by Cynni Francis

To be delivered to Lynne at the soothing side of Hasty Brook,  her refuge and inspiration in Minnesota

To Kim in Free Union, her home in Virginia (note orchid!)

To Kate and her sweet dog Radio, also in my home state of Virginia

Looking a bit battered, but with contents pristine, to Gail in Florida

To Anne in Bowling Green :)

to Janet in Greenback, Tennessee

To Judy, on a peaceful porch, also in Tennessee

and to Jayne in Ringgold, Georgia! That's what a SQUEE looks like!

My heart is overflowing. Full, spilling over, eyes too. Dammit, I have stuff to do!! Y'all stop!

Creole Lady at 1 pm.

It doesn't get any better than that, to be able to see this book land with a thump on the tables of beloved friends all over the country. And we have Miss Cynni and Marty to thank for that. 

 As if it all weren't sweet enough, Cynni finally had time to start reading the book I gave her in wholly inadequate thanks for her extra sweat and time. She started with the Acknowledgements, where I mention a woman named Gwen who, with her adorable young daughter, brought me five chimney swifts that had fallen down their chimney.  With them, I had five more absolutely beautiful models to draw.

                                 Gwen turns out to be Cynni's sister in law, Marty's sister.
Had I not thanked her in the Acknowledgements, Cynni and Marty never would have known that.

Oh, there's magic in simply saying thank you. The more you say it, the more magic you get.

5 pm. Dayum, girl! You aren't getting older. You're getting better!

Having said Thank You to all of you who have bought my new book, please know that this post is not a plea for more orders. I will be indisposed from now until May 2, traveling, speaking and signing books in Massachusetts, with one foray into New Hampshire. Details are in the left sidebar, "Julie In the Flesh."

For those on mobile cellular telephones,  who can't see the blog sidebar, you can find details here:

http://www.juliezickefoose.com/home/meetjulie.php

My talks kick off with Harvard Museum of Natural History on Saturday, April 23.
 I'm at Gibson's Bookstore in Concord NH April 25.
Mt. Auburn Cemetery April 26.
Fruitlands in Harvard MA April 27.
Drumlin Farm in Lincoln MA April 28.
And it all wraps up with a show of the ORIGINAL ART for Baby Birds on Saturday, April 30 at the Museum of American Bird Art in Canton MA.

Come see me, Northeasterners! I am locked, loaded and ready to talk!

So if you're moved to order copies for Mother's Day, just know that I will do my very best to get them shipped in the three days I will be home, and before I take off again for the New River Birding Festival on May 5, and the Great Salt Lake Birding Festival May 13. No rest for the wicked or the weary in April and May.