Many thanks as always to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for thinking up and hosting a monthly blooming show and tell.  I’m a little late to the Ides of March party but it’s a blow-out.  There are well over a hundred posts already and this month in particular is truly fascinating to compare notes on the start of spring.

Spring is just-just getting going here – the crocuses have opened in the last couple of days; the skunk cabbage are taking their time; the pussy willows are out; and I even spotted the very first and very most tiny daffodils (could it be ‘Bartley’?).  The adorable snow drops have been blooming for a little while now but we have such a pathetic display of them that I’m making some notes to remember to remedy that on the July bulb orders.  The hellebores didn’t fare too well this winter – we lost a couple of pretty ones.  The H. foetidus survived but the last snow beat them up a bit.  The Heaths made it through the snow and are still looking lovely – remember, if you plant some, their Barbara Streisand “best side” faces the sunny south.

(I want you to appreciate that for some of these pictures I had to actually lie down on the ground.  It may be one of Mother Nature’s best jokes that to get a good look at the rainy season’s first flowers, one must get down and dirty. Hover over for titles and click on for a larger image.)

The greenhouse is heating up and full of spring too.  Here are some of the blooming beauties indoors:

I’m not sure of which rosemary that is – it truly is a remarkably deep blue – can anyone provide an i.d.?  And we know that the Eomecon (a member of the poppy family) is “perfectly hardy” here (so says Ed from Opus Topiarium) but we have been torturing it in pots for a couple of years now.  Maybe this year we’ll get it in the ground.

Are you taking notes now for things to do (and buy) later?  — Did you lose anything this winter?

Take a pretty close look right about now and you’ll see it everywhere – spring is just poking it’s head out of the ground.  The daffodils are 4 or 5 inches tall in some places, the crocuses were up this morning and probably open by now and one of the more bizarre wildflowers – the skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus) is suddenly snout out.  A few of the tulips in the Rose Garden are even showing some serious leaf – I hope the deer don’t notice…

And in the greenhouse spring is poking out of packs and our new coir pots — we switched to coir fiber pots from peat for a couple of reasons:  Coir is a renewable resource (coconut husk) whereas peat is not – peat sources are definitely dwindling.  Also the peat pots don’t break down quickly enough to even throw away in our compost and we’ve been told that the coir pots break down so fast we can actually plant them.  I’ll keep you posted about how we like them.

Gail and a few volunteers did a bunch of seeding last week while I was away and I thought I’d share their list of accomplishments with you really so that I could have a better idea of who’s who on the benches.  Many of the seeds have already germinated because we had a 3-4 day stretch of sun and heat after sowing – for some seeds that’s all it takes.  – By the way, the sweet peas Gail and I sowed with our no-soak method on February 24th, germinated in about a week .

Warning – this is a long list in no particular order (aside from the date).

March 4th:  pennyroyal, hollyhock, Rudbeckia, Asperula, parsley, Viola, Salvia, Eryngium, Centranthemum, kale, cabbage, lettuce, Phystostegia, Lysimachia, statice, artichoke, dahlia, petunia, Swiss chard.

March 6th:  Artichoke, Eryngium, leeks, Orlaya, Calendula, Dicranostigma, Asclepias, dahlia, kale, cabbage, Aquilegia.

and this week, March 11th:  beets, California poppy, lettuce, creeping zinnia, annual Phlox, Nicotiana, Ipomopsis, fountain grass, Gomphrena, pink paintbrush grass, Asclepias, Salvia.

We do start things early because of having the greenhouse but even if all you have is a sunny windowsill, artichokes could be/should be started now because the seedlings need at least a 2 week period of cold (no warmer than 50 degrees, but not freezing) after germination in order to produce flowers the first year.

If you have any questions about the list – if want more details about anything in particular, please let me know.  Have you seen spring emerging?  Have you started any seeds?

When I made my winter vacation request for last week I asked the universe for extra warm weather so that I could get a jump on spring.  It snowed instead.  But it really didn’t matter because I was lucky enough to be snowed in at the Philadelphia Flower show.  An Italian spring was in full mid-summer bloom there.  Now, I have to admit to you that, in general, I am not the biggest fan of these spring flower shows.  There’s something that doesn’t hit me quite right when I see delphiniums and daffodils blooming together – my family likened it to my aversion to bent spoons.  They think I’m weird.  (I know I am.)  But I have to say that the sheer florabundance of the show was truly overwhelming and like every one else I was drop jawed at the “Milan” display of horti-couture.  Shoes made from plants?  It’s as perfect a combination as chocolate and peanut butter.  And I would totally wear the twig dress!

My other favorite part of the show was the Horticourt where people – mostly ordinary every day people as opposed to professional growers – had entered their prized specimen plants in hopes of winning … well, a prize.  I can’t imagine being a judge for any of the classes and categories in the Horticourt – all of the plants were beautiful, healthy, perfectly groomed and eminently covet-able.  So of course I stopped through the Marketplace on the way out to … purchase plants (as if I need any more).  Maybe one day I’ll shoot for a blue ribbon at a flower show too.

The really interesting thing is that the Philadelphia Flower Show is produced by the Pennsylvania Horticulture Society and is a fundraiser for an amazing program called Philadelphia Green. According to their website, Philadelphia Green was started in 1974 and is  “the nation’s most comprehensive urban greening program”.  Jane Pepper, president of PHS, showed the group I was with some really inspiring slides of vacant land reclamation and beautification (the befores and afters were truly stunning), thriving community gardens, and their growing (pun intended) partnership with the Philadelphia Prison System – inmates sow seeds for community gardens in their greenhouses and a lot of their produce is distributed to local food pantries.  Coming into town on the train, I happened to notice what had to have been one of the Green’s community gardens in a neighborhood that looked like it might be on the wrong side of the tracks.  I’ll have to go back to get a glimpse of it under cultivation.  And I definitely want to go back.  I’d never been to Philadelphia or the flower show and they’re both high on my list now for do overs.

Did you make it to the show and what did you love about it?  – Or were you snowed in?