Tuesday, December 17, 2024

Spring in December

 

The delicate pink camellia is always an incongruous sight blooming in December. And look at all those buds. 

That towering shrub was a stick when I planted it between the aborvitae trees (also little sticks.) What was I thinking? I'm a short-sighted gardener when it comes to how big things can get. "Thirty years from now" seems an impossibly long time, then all of a sudden, here it is.

Spring in December is not so farfetched in Seattle, and the observant eye will see buds ready to pop open in the next 8 weeks. We haven't had a hard freeze yet, and we're in yet another warm pineapple express rain pattern. Unlike much of the country, winter is green time in western Washington. 

I usually force a few paper white narcissus bulbs in November. They grow fast in the kitchen greenhouse window and bloom around Christmas. The tiny flowers release a highly concentrated smell of spring. 

"Flowers always make people better, happier, more hopeful."

Luther Burbank

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