I woke up to snow this morning.  Not much, mind you, but any snow right now is a real bummer. I’ve been hoping for the gradual drying out and warming of the soil, and snow is NOT going to help that plan.  I am lucky, though.  When I need my green-and-growing fix, I can go into the warm greenhouses and visit the flowers and vegetables that are growing on there.  Why don’t you come on in and visit them, too? It’ll make you know that spring really is coming, in spite of that nasty white stuff.

We’ve started to plant up our beautiful combination baskets that you love so well!  The flowering plants are arriving as plugs, and we’re transplanting them into the baskets.  By Mother’s Day they will be beautiful, full baskets dripping with color!  We keep careful notes from year to year about what combinations looked good, held up over the growing season, and were the most popular, and we eliminate the not-so-good ones, and grow more of the good ones.  By tweaking the selection, we make sure we have the ones you like when you are ready for them.  They grow like thunder once the sun comes out to heat up the greenhouses.

We know you are as anxious for Spring as we are.  You (or your neighbors) came out in force on Saturday, the first day we were open, to buy pansies, to order fruit trees and to just get a shot of spring from the earthy smell of the greenhouses. 

Rain is predicted for later in the week, and that’ll set back our gardening efforts.  But it’s coming! I can feel it!

We send you an Irish blessing on this St Patrick’s Day evening:

May the rains sweep gentle across your fields,
May the sun warm the land,
May every good seed you have planted bear fruit,
And late summer find you standing in fields of plenty.

Written by Lynn on the slope of Teasel Hill on St Patrick’s Day evening. 

The first cuttings (Regal geraniums) have arrived and are ready to be potted up.  And so the year begins.  We are excited to be started on the quick journey to Spring.  The pace will pick up now, as deliveries arrive nearly every day for the next few weeks.  Soon the greenhouses will smell of damp, warm earth and sunshine.  (We hope, anyway.  Let the snow go away, please!)

 Written by Lynn on the slope of Teasel Hill where the air is cold, cold, cold.