I am so anxious for spring to be here that I examine the seed pots several times a day! If a watched pot never boils, I’m surprised that any of my seeds have started at all.

Right now, I have one Gasteria seedling, one Albuca spiralis, two Lobivia, one Lewisia, ten Stipa, ten Heliotrope, and about twenty five Incarvillea. None of the Crassula, Haworthia, Aloinopsis, or mixed cactus seedlings have ventured forth yet.

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Today felt a bit like spring, with some bright sun and mild temperatures. I found some energy to go out and do some clean-up around the potting area and plant shelves near the house. It takes just the right mindset for me to tackle the dozens of pots that need to be organized and stored under the potting bench and around, but I found the energy today and hope for more tomorrow to clean up the rest of the area.

I have hundreds of pots. It seems like overkill, but I also have big plans for plant propagation. I’m not getting rid of any pots just yet! I do think I need to replace the board that makes up the wood shelf–the bow is getting a little extreme!

There was a fascinating fungus right in front of the potting bench that I need to research.

One advantage to COVID-19 forcing me to work from home is that I am close to the greenhouse. I bought a wireless thermometer/hygrometer last week and I can visually see that the humidity in that amazing green space is way too high. Now, I can open the door during the day to let some fresh air in and close it back up at night so that I’m paying to heat the entire neighborhood. The humidity gets close to 100% during the night, but I can get it back down to 60% during the day with the door open.

The Cyclamen coum seedlings are blooming beautifully in the greenhouse.

About eight inches of snow stacked up at my house over the last three days. Gardening has remained an indoor activity. It’s a good time for seed planting and planning for warmer days.

I neglected to mention a favorite plant in my previous post–Heliotrope ‘Marine.’ To my nose, Heliotrope has one of the best fragrances of all flowers. I haven’t grown this plant for many years. For me, it tends to be a bit persnickety, both in germinating and growing the plants on and also in keeping the plants growing and blooming. I’ve also failed at keeping the plants ticking over in the greenhouse in the winter–they are truly perennial in warmer climates.

The seeds are from Select Seeds. Here is what their website shows they will become:

I made the mistake of not soaking the seed mix for a few hours before I planted the seeds–a little anxious, I guess. I’ll not make that mistake again–it takes so long to get the pots to pull enough moisture in from the bottom to be appropriately moist!

Today is Valentine’s Day and here are a few flower pics from the house and greenhouse.

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My earliest attempts at seed germination this year failed miserably. For whatever reason, not one seed started. I had planted Sinningia seeds, Rhipsalis, Euphorbia, and Kalanchoe. I think the Euphorbia seeds might still be viable, so I will keep them in their tray and keep watering, but I’ve given up on the others–it’s been about two months. I made the mistake of using previously used potting soil for the Sinningias and I suspect there were bugs or pathogens that kept them from sprouting. I have no idea what caused the Kalanchoe’s to not germinate. It’s possible the seeds just weren’t viable.

The second round of seed starting was about two weeks ago. I used seed starting mix combined with gravel for this round. These were seeds from an Etsy seller, Unusual Seeds. The below photos are from their postings.

So far, there are just a few seedlings. Three of the Kalanchoe thyrsiflora have sprouted.

One Gasteria seedling is showing itself–a plump little green ball at this point.

I also planted Lobivia seeds and one of them is germinating. This isn’t a great photo, but the reddish seedling stands out in the gravel mix.

None of the Albuca, Haworthia, or Crassula seeds are up yet, but I’m hopeful.

Today, for the garden/patio, I started some other seeds. These were from Select Seeds and I’m excited to get them going. I’ve always been thrilled with their seeds and plants. The below photos are from their website. I started Lewisia “Elise Mix”, Viola “Chicky Chicks”, and Stipa gigantea.

In addition, I planted seeds for Incarvillea sinensis ‘Cheron White’ from Chilterns. Chilterns is an amazing UK seed house. They have a little bit of everything and their seeds have led to a lot of success for me in the garden. The below photo is from their website.

This was a snowy day and it was fun to get some gardening done indoors while the snow piled up outside.

Back in November, I potted up 100 iris reticulata bulbs for forcing. I didn’t bother to get the cold frame set up. Instead, I just put them on shelves around and kept an eye out to make sure they didn’t get too little or too much water. My investment paid off immensely Through much of January and February. I was also able to gift some pots to family and friends as an easy-to-grow early spring.

My takeaway from this exercise is that it should be repeated–it is so easy and inexpensive and it brings much joy for a long stretch of time.

There is a fun aspect to winter in the greenhouse that I often forget–the surprises that come when I only look around in there once a week. Today brought a perfect example. I opened the door and happened to look at the right shelf to see my hardy cyclamen seedlings blooming for the first time.

These seedlings are about three years old and two of them have formed bulbs in the small pot. I didn’t want to put them out in the garden for fear they would get lost or eaten–they are pretty diminutive.

Viewing them close up is a benefit to keeping them in pots in the greenhouse.

Between the two bulbs, there are at least 4 flowers coming, so I’m pretty excited! And my micro lens picked up the pattern inside that flower that I never would have noticed from the side or top.

The memory garden looks a mess, with lots of branches having fallen from the big Douglas fir and the garden’s edging having been ripped out by man or beast at some point. But the plants don’t seem to know. Already, there are snowdrops, crocus, Iberis, and strangely, a rose!

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It feels an awful lot like an early spring…but I’ll wait to see what February brings.

I spent some time in the greenhouse this weekend and found a few happy surprises.

First of all, sister Cate had sent me a link to the snowdrops blooming in British gardens and I realized I should check out my own. Sure enough, in the first week in January, they were already in bloom, the bravest of all garden bulbs.

The first Clivia blooms have made an appearance! This seedling is blooming for the first time. I found it under the bench and so the color is maybe not fully developed yet. Within a few more days the color should adjust to the true hues. So far, though, it looks to be a peachy yellow, which might be really nice.

I dug this precocious plant out from under the bench and watered it well. I’ll get more photos as the full flowers open in the coming weeks.

Just as I was ready to give up on Cymbidium orchids due to poor blooming, my plants are all spiking this year! I fed them better than I had in the past and I think that made a difference.

If I can keep the mold and mildew away, these should produce some amazing flowers. I am guessing there will be seven or eight spikes in all, maybe more.

Lastly, also in the greenhouse, the Veltheimia bracteata bulbs have flower spikes coming, too! Their buds are beautifully intricate even before the flowers open. I need to get some magnified photos of them in the next few day.

Here it is–my last Plant-A-Day entry! And who gets the last highlight? Elephant garlic! A friend of ours gave us starts of these plants five years ago and they’ve grown well in the raised veggie garden full of other, smaller garlic plants. What hasn’t happened, though, is for me to harvest them. They just don’t seem big enough yet to yank them out and eat them!

Elephant garlic is said to be milder than other garlic types and more digestible for those sensitive to garlic. How awful to not be able to digest garlic! But at least this allium is one way to get the flavor in your foods without making you sick.

Below you can see these plants bravely putting forth new growth at the end of December, 2020.

My future plans for these bulbs is to nurture them a bit and divide them so I won’t feel so frightened of harvesting them next year!

I can’t forget to give some space to the humble dandelion in my 2020 count. Dandelions were rampant in our lawn and garden when we moved to this house in 1995. I loved our neighbor, Phyllis, who had a wonderful perspective. Her lawn was more yellow than green in the spring with dandelion flowers and she loved it. She said she didn’t think of them as weeds, she just thought they had pretty flowers.

We tried to eliminate them from the lawn, at least, because it felt like any of these plants that went to seed would result in a thousand more non-grass plants in the lawn. Before I was more aware of the dangers of lawn products to wildlife and watersheds, we tried weed and feed products. This backfired because there were so many dandelions that when they died, they left big open spots were new dandelions could germinate!

We’re at a point where I can manually weed out any dandelions from the lawn. But they still pop up in the flower beds and get missed when I’m weeding. Inevitably, the cheery yellow flowers raise their perky faces and laugh at how seriously we take it all. I found this one today in the memory garden.

My future plans for dandelions are to keep chasing them down and removing them while knowing full-well they will always be with me. I might try eating some, too, now that our lawn is organic.

I was actually pruning this plant yesterday, which reminded me to count it as a plant-a-day. I’ve had this plant for over twenty-five years. We moved it to this house from the rental house we had before. It wants to be a monster of a shrub, with even more vigor than its B. davidii cousins. I like the flowers of this one because they are so different–a warm gold shade and in unusual ball-shaped clusters.

Despite being called a butterfly bush, this particular type seems less attractive to pollinators of any kind. It also doesn’t seem to reseed at all, which is great because B. davidii is invasive here in Seattle.

This shrub is growing along the northern fence in the orchard bed. I cut it back to four feet yesterday and will hope for some more compact growth and lots of flowers in 2021.

While native to Washington, I’ve come to realize this plant is only native to the east-side of the state. But I started several from seed this year for the native garden. Oops. It will be a bit of a miracle if they ever get to blooming size, anyway. They seem to be slow to develop.

This plant family has some interesting looking flowers, though most of the plants themselves are a bit coarse. A. speciosa is no exception. I guess that’s why they are called milkweeds. But wherever they are native, they are definitely not unwanted weeds to the many insects and animals that rely on them.

I’ve already set the seedlings out into the meadow portion of my garden. Now, it’s just a waiting game to see if they leaf back out, then put some growth on to get to blooming size in the next couple of years.