Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Mani the purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here to bring you up to date on what’s been happening in our gardening. You may remember me from such posts as “Below Seasonal Normals”, among so many, many others.
Here I am in a characteristic pose.
Once again, it may look dry here, because of the brown warm-season grasses, but it’s really not. The soil is very damp.
People keep saying how dry it is, but the average precipitation for January here is about 0.43 inches (11mm), which is pretty dry, regardless.
We got more snow about ten days ago, very dense snow, and so we received almost half again the average precipitation for January.
What’s weird is all the warm weather. We often get stretches of warm weather in winter, but not nearly as many days as we’ve had since the first of November.
It was 61F (16C) here today.
Just a few years ago we were “below seasonal normals” for weeks on end; this lasted for about four or five winters and was very tiresome, as I know from having to hear about it constantly.
I know it’s been a while since I posted but not much has been happening. The guy I live with has been painting.
It’s been so warm that some of the colchicums are sending up leaves. This is certainly not normal but the leaves went through the last snow and lows around 3F (-16.1C) with no problem.
The guy I live with said maybe this is normal in places with very mild winters.
It is normal, though weird, to see roses and clematis start leafing out at this time of year, but the guy I live with said he’s seen this many, many times, and nothing bad happens.
He’s seen Cyclamen coum in flower this early before, but usually it was only one or two flowers.
And there was a crocus in flower. This is Crocus korolkowii. Not a very good picture.
Most of the activity here has involved snowdrops. Of course.
There were more coming up in the shade garden path and these were dug up and potted today.
I helped, in my usual fashion.
The guy I live with said he got a nice picture of ‘Nothing Special’ in the shade garden.
This needs to be moved to a sunnier spot in the winter. Snowdrops like shade in summer and sun in winter.
And, while in the front yard, he made a movie.
There were a lot of bees.
And, finally, some seeds came in the mail.
These are mostly annuals because the guy I live with decided to stop growing a lot of plants from seeds, as I said in a previous post.
The lily is easy to grow from seed but will take a long time to grow to flowering size.
The guy I live with said it might be nice to try to grow a bunch of sunflowers out by the back fence. His wife’s favorite was ‘Italian White’ but Hudson didn’t offer that.
This is kind of a sad time of year for the guy I live with. Most times are, but the feeling that spring will be here eventually can be a hard thing. He used to get the Hudson catalog, give it to his wife to check things she wanted, and then he would look at it, and order their seeds. He’s been ordering from Hudson for over thirty-five years, every year.
They say we may get some rain later this week. Rain in February here is “just plain weird”, but since a cold wave isn’t expected–yet–the guy I live with said rain would be just fine.
I guess we’ll see.
Until next time, then.
the miserable gardener 
Some of my colchicums are coming up, too. All kinds of things are greening up. Phlox nana, and Agastache, and California poppies which had reseeded from last year’s flowers.
That was a nice bee movie!
Thanks.
The guy I live with said some of the California poppies here have been green, or bluish, all winter, but he ordered more from Hudson, like he does every year.
He’ll wait to sow the new seeds until the end of this month. He used to sow them in late autumn, but that didn’t work very well.
Thanks for the bee movie! No bees in Rye at the moment, but then no snowdrops either, so that might explain it.
You’re welcome. The guy I live with says you can hear the buzzing, but maybe not on the blog.
He said snowdrops make bees slightly crazy. The flowers are scented like honey, and maybe that’s why.
‘Italian White’ is one of my favorites also. I would say that it is my favorite, but that would mean that none of the others could also be my favorite.
He got ‘Chocolate Cherry’, ‘Midnight Rouge’, and ‘Velvet Queen’. Maybe Hudson will have ‘Italian White’ next year.
There are probably other places where you can get this, but he just orders from Hudson.
Oh yes; I can get ‘Italian White’ from a nursery in town. It is too popular to not be available somewhere. Renee’s Garden Seed used to sell it, although I have not seen it this year.
The guy I live with says it’s a very nice one. And that there are obvious potential problems with sowing sunflower seeds directly into the garden, so he’s going to sow the ones he got into peat pots, and plant out the peat pots when the plants are small.
Mee-yow how lovelee to see Flowerss an grass (even if it iss brown) Mani!!!! Wee have 4 feet of snow an frigid tempyturess. It iss 1 Fahrenhite feelin like -8 F deegreess!! Or -17 C feelin like -22 C deegreess…eether way iss furry furry cold…. Wee so want Spring! Guy yore BEE video iss lovelee. Seein such happy Beess makess us happy… Mee posted a bloggie post. It was rather short. Not much happenss when snow bound 😉 Wishin both of youss’ a guud an hydrated week!
**purrss** BellaDharma an **wavess** BellaSita Mum
Thanks. I don’t think we’ve ever had four feet of snow, but we have had three feet, according to the guy I live with. It’s not very common here.
We had two cold spells, around 3F or even maybe zero, with not much snow. Tomorrow its going to be 64F. That wouldn’t be weird if we had had lots of cold weather in December and January, but we didn’t; it was like 64F almost every day. That’s totally weird.
Snow iss snow rite Mani? Yore weather has been weerd. So Cal (South Callyfornia) has been inn 70’s an 80’ss from what our rendss meowed to us. Iss all furry weerd!!! Iss 32 F degreess todaay an still feelss frigid! BLEH!!!!!
Things are definitely weird. Though there’s not much we can do about it.
Same heer…wee jsut sorta ‘watch’ THE weerd an wunder Mani an Guyg…..
Yes, things are definitely weird. The guy I live with says we have slight chance for rain tomorrow and the next day.
Rain in Denver in February. That’s super weird.
THE weather iss outta whack up heer too Mani an Guy…man wee can hardly wait fore Spring!
We can hardly wait for some rain.
We had a small vegetation fire at highways 72 & 93 and with the winds over the weekend, we kept an eye out on that. Moisture of any kind would be welcome-our soil is bone dry. Have a good week, Mani.
We didn’t have that wind over the weekend. Maybe just a little.
Even though rain in February is totally weird, the guy I live with said he wouldn’t mind rain, and would just shrug off the weirdness.
He actually watered part of the garden today. I was shocked, but he said the recently-transplanted snowdrops could maybe use some water sonce they’re in active growth.