What I Love About Winter Gardening

Not only is spring a wonderful time and feast for the eye of spring flowers, trees in bloom, magnolias, cherry blossoms, and dogwoods but, winter heralds the arrival of blooms indoors. It's this time during the winter when I could use some blooms inside to remind me that spring is not far off. My want for the fragrance of yellow primrose, paper whites, miniature roses, and  cyclamens was quinched today as I got loose at the produce market and nursery. I purposely avoided the green house and went inside to the store to look at what seeds were available. I behaved. The plants were so... cheap compared to Home Depot or Lowe's. Twenty dollars went a long way. 

Even bought a new house plant. I wanted a ti plant. It was beautiful but that would be dead in my house before spring came. I have more paper whites to force but that can wait so I'll have some in February and March and then, spring! Where will they go. Would love them to sit on the table next to me but that's not going to work. I found out the hard way that primrose and cyclamen like it cooler in the house so all the plants except the African violets will sit in windowsills where it's cooler.

The yellow are my favorite for fragrance.

Grass for my cat. I'd like to see when he notices it and that it's okay to eat. I have seeds for this from Botanical Interests but have never planted it. If he likes it maybe I'll try to grow some.

Cyclamen. I usually kill this but forget that this is a tuber and when it goes dormant it can be planted in the ground to come back next spring.

African violets

Miniature roses