The News from Kenabeek

I woke this morning to the kind of snow you long for at the beginning of winter – big, fat, feathery flakes drifting down. It’s been cloudy and snowed a bit every day since my last entry, several inches worth all together. And then the clouds rolled away and we had blue sky and bright sun again. Already the snow is melting.

Indoors spring is already here. In the sunroom my tomatoes have all sprouted, and the hollyhocks I’m starting early have begun to sprout. And my hibiscus continues to blossom madly. There was a point a week or so ago when I thought it had stopped setting new buds, but apparently that was just a breather. Today there are four blossoms out, and 40 buds still to go. This plant has never blossomed like this before, and I’ve had it for years and years. It’s true I repotted it last year, once the cotton scale was truly gone, but I’ve done that before without such a dramatic result. It must be that I cut back the root ball fairly extensively, so there’s more room for dirt. But since the plant is at least four feet tall (and a lot more in the summer) I am reluctant to undertake such a strenuous job every year. I’ll see what it does next year before I decided. It has certainly been a treat – blossoms almost daily since late January.

Next weekend I will start my violas, four o’clocks, and canna lilies. If I have everything right, by the time I need the big pots to transplant the tomatoes into, the flowers will have all been transplanted outdoors. Gardening is truly addictive.