neko nomad wrote:This is how Lake Ontario looks today; we had freezing fog this morning, but all of the frost disappeared a couple of hours after sunrise. The garden doesn't look much better.
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Thats pretty though!
Over here, things on the balcony are showing more than a glimmer of hope. The Astilbe is reviving, a young stalk peeping up remarkably tall from the empty earth. And the Dusty Miller, surprisingly, survived winter. Which made me very happy. OK, so I did take it in a time or two, when it was freezing or even snowing outside.
Thats what I did with the Japanese willow too, the Hakuro-nishiki, which is supposed to survive the winter anyway, but the one I used to have most definitely didn't last year, hence taking this one in to be on the safe side - and so, it's still alive! And very confused. Because taken in from the snow outside right to a snuggly temporary place in the warmth, it thought spring had started - and sprouted all kinds of new thin green shoots. Bet it regretted that when it was outside again in the still chilly evening air. It seems to be in an ambivalent kind of stasis now.
Also confused was the Vrouwenmantel or alchemilla mollis, which popped up with cheerful little baby-green leaves all over inside when I brought everything in because of record snowfall outside - which however are still stubbornly persisting in looking cheerful even now they're outside again. In the ranks of the confused, too, is the Kroontjeskruid or Euphorbia Helioscopia, which got all happy with a new top extension of fresh green leaves when it was inside, then sagged again somewhat grumpily when taken back out. Seems OK enough now.
The Bidens, Dahlia, Lobelias and Felicias all died in winter, alas. But I think they're all more or less expected to, tho some descriptions had offered hope of a possible two-year life span. (I could have saved the dahlia I suppose, but the prescriptions on how to dry and preserve it were too complicated for me).
The one loss I had really hoped to avoid was that of the licorice. I liked it so much! And all around town I see it in tiny strips of earth beside front doors, even in flower box hanging off of windowsills, still very much alive. But mine died - it looks miserable, everything dried dead and crisped.
Was it because of the wind here where my balcony is? It turns pretty cold sometimes ... or did I not care for it right? I still blame the painters too, from when they trampled all over it, or rather, targeted their high-pressure water spout at my balcony. The licorice never emerged back from that, reduced to cold limp strings that stuck to the balcony floor as it was ... <angry>
But still, all in all, considering winter that came and went and the paint that was dripped over the earth in my pots and the trampling - considering I had given up altogether, in fact - it looks better than expected ... any time now, I'll go and buy some new things again too.
I haven't purchased any flowers, because I'm going to be gone for one month beginning on April 15, and it'll all be dead when I return if I planted any flowers now.
