My admiration of Pleione orchids has increased over the years as my original plants have increased and one new hybrid came into my life. Given that, I decided to add some new varieties to my collection. I found an excellent seller on eBay (787paulm) who offers different clones of these wonderful orchids. I ordered two new ones and when they arrived, Paul had thrown in a gift bulb for free.

Paul is local here and the bulbs landed very quickly–huge and healthy–bigger than any of my bulbs, and all of them have buds developing. I have no idea if they will actually flower. I potted them in moss gathered from the lawn with potting mix underneath. I’m particularly excited about the yellow hybrid, Golden Gate, as that will be very different from the pinks that I already own.

Pleione bulbs reproduce rapidly when they are happy. My bulbs produce multiple new bulbs and bulblets every year. The bulbs bloom the following year while the bulblets take several years to reach blooming size. There are enough of them for me to try some outside this year; they are hardy here (zone 8, 10 degrees). They would look nice in the woodland garden. Stay tuned for that experiment.

I went to water some orchids in the greenhouse today but the water barrel had so much ice, I couldn’t get at the water! We started the week with a dusting of snow and ended on some warm-ish, sunny days. But the ice and snow are sticking around just to remind us that it is still February and winter won’t let go for a while.

In anticipation of spring, I’m starting more seeds. Last week I planted petunias, nicotiana, and verbena seeds. They are being pokey about sprouting but the petunias are up.

Another fun seed that has sprouted is a hoya seed I’m growing for the On the Ledge Sow Along.

There might be another seedling or two coming along in this pot–it would be fun to have a couple of different kinds.

The other seeds that will get started this weekend are vegetable seeds that need a long headstart to succeed in our short summers. I’ve committed to providing seedlings to a couple of friends, both flowers and veggies. That adds a level of pressure but it also excites me to know that I’m getting some younger people excited about plants. I’ll sneak some native seedlings in there, too!

Today was a perfect day for getting some garden cleanup done and some grafting!

Here is the cleaned-up memory garden. It doesn’t look like much right now. It will transform into something completely different in a month and for about six months after that.

Clean-up involved cutting back some dead stems and pulling a few weeds. I just left the stems where I found them in case they house any insects. They will get covered by the bursting vegetation and break down into the soil by the end of summer.

I found some nice clumps of crocus blooming today and couldn’t resist some photos.

It is a tight race between crocus and iris when it comes to the flowers I most photograph in the spring. Below are some more of the forced dwarf iris that came into glorious bloom this week. This dwarf iris bulb mix was very different from other mixes in that it didn’t have any yellows but had the very light blue/whitish flowers, instead. Stunning!

The last thing I did outside was to graft a few cherry branches onto the seedling cherry in the driveway bed. I grafted one branch from a sweet cherry on there and one from the pie cherry. There are already two grafts on that seedling. It keeps throwing up sucker-ish branches so I just keep wanting to graft. I’m not super confident in the timing or my expertise this year but it was worth a try.

The dahlia, forget-me-not, and gaura seedlings were large enough to transplant so I potted them on a few weeks ago. There were 25 dahlias, 13 gauras, and far too many FMNs. I found space for the dahlias and gauras in the greenhouse, but only a few FMNs ended up there and the rest were pretty roughly transplanted in clumps to pots and placed outside. No time for delicate hardening off–just popped them into cold soil and into a cold world with my best wishes for their continued success. Next week’s temperatures will dip into the 20s–I’m hoping the usually hardy Myosotis will handle the cold alright. I want to get them planted out under the tulips in the memory garden. I’m not sure they’ll grow fast enough to make the spectacular show I envision. I’ll try, though.

The happiest early spring blooms have come from the little iris bulbs I forced in the refrigerator. I planted them in November and started pulling them from the fridge in January. The first pots took a few weeks to bloom and some bulbs were blind. Subsequent pots were more successful.

The greenhouse doesn’t have a lot blooming–just this holiday cactus.

I picked some flowers outside for a cute arrangement in the house last weekend.

The outdoor plants believe that spring is here–especially in some of the warmer areas around the city. Here are some cheerful photos from my wanders around the city.

The weather provided plenty of opportunities for me to perform some garden chores this weekend. I chose to stay inside instead and work on computer screens. I did get outside long enough to look around and shoot some photos. The garden is waking up already!

Snowdrops and crocus were stealing the show today. I had to replant a few allium and narcissus bulbs. The damn squirrels won’t leave stuff along this year and they have rooted out a bunch of the bulbs.

Not blooming, but growing madly are the garlic plants in the old raised bed under the Douglas fir.

The sun was so bright it shone right through the leaves on my Sinningia ‘Freckles’. The little leaves of this houseplant are spectacular.