I'm Baaaaaaaack!

Yes, I'm back and feeling much better. I want to thank everyone for sending their good wishes. They cheered me up a lot. A woman I worked with from the Philippines summed up really well how I felt. She would say her husband (she was NEVER sick!) stayed home from work that day because of " a general malaise". But, my malaise has disappeared and here are some updates on my seed sowing and a real surprise.

Below you see the my first glimpse of Spring. Outside the breezeway doors is a little rectangular garden. It's on a west wall and, helpfully, near the dryer vent. Steve pointed out the very first daffodils coming up there! I was amazed since there is still a foot and a half of snow all over the rest of the yard and it hasn't been that warm (except today it was 49 degrees!).

You won't believe how happy this makes me. After seeing these few patches of green shoots, I tried to drag the pugs through the snow around the yard looking for more green! Garm gave up and I put him inside, but Thea and I did find a few more coming up against the south wall of the Main Garden. Spring will be here soon!

Meanwhile, in the cozy and warm basement the seeds I sowed last month are doing great. I took pictures last weekend and some today. You can see the dramatic growth......

These are the red and white fibrous begonia plants last weekend.

And today! These seeds are the size of pepper grains and they came out of the packet like water when I was planting. I've been doing some thinning the past few days . . .

The African Impatiens.

Transferred to an old strawberry container because they were hitting the plastic cover on the flat. They are a very tricky impatient to grow since they aren't like the traditional ones. I'm a little concerned with the pale color of the leaves and their not-quite-normal shape.

Another type of begonia. It is supposed to get up to 24" high - it's new from Burpee called "Braveheart".

I love this picture of the perfect heart-shaped leaves and the tiny white roots. Begonias are typically slow growing, but this big one is fast and you can see that they will be larger than the rest of the pack. They already look like braves little hearts :-)).

This is the potato-like tuber of my cream and apricot colored begonia. If you look very closely at about 2:00 (or nearly 3:00) on it you'll see a speck of what looks like sand or something. That's the first bud starting. Please ignore that tiny green plant on the left side - that seed must have been stuck on the side of the tuber.

Look at that! (I turned it around.) Today there are now 3 buds (at 9:00, 1:00 and 3:00). These buds will become stalks with leaves and flowers. It's best to only allow two or three buds to mature on a tuberous begonia - that way you'll have larger flowers. Like these:

All this beauty from a lowly potato look-alike. Sort of like "The Ugly Duckling" story.

Just about ready to pop! Look how tall this is - 24" Amaryillis always seem like some kind of alien plant to me. I should use my head right about now and stake it before I get up one morning and it's either on the floor or flopped over and broken. Tomorrow, maybe . . .

My book of quotes is not at hand so I won't close with something witty. Just

Bye for now,

Alyssa