Signs of Spring - On My Windowsill!

The day before yesterday was lovely in Nova Scotia. Temperature 9 degrees - ABOVE zero. I'm telling you it t was amazing and wonderful. Despite the piles of dirty snow, sitting like small mountains everywhere, the warmth lifted the spirits of everyone. Coats unbuttoned, smiling faces, everyone reveling in the promise of a soon coming spring. And if you stood still and listened, you could hear the sound of water trickling and running as the sun warmed and melted it.

And on my window sill, spring is springing. I've got some miniature alliums going and some miniature irises. Not that I am in the habit of forcing bulbs normally, but I'll tell you what I tried to do here. Last year, my dear husband saw a picture of a mass of blooming flowers in a photo and went on the hunt for the best deal he could find on flowering bulbs. And he found it! Don't remember how much the cost but that isn't the point anyway. What is important is that he found 400 bulbs of all sorts. Now that is very nice, unless you don't have flower beds ready for planting them into. I've done quite a bit as far a planting things around the house, but realistically we had so many things going on last year, and the fall before, that I didn't get as much done as I wanted to.

So here I am, 400 bulbs, and really no where to plant them and minimal time to get any kind of bed ready. I couldn't even think of a place that I would have liked to put them. And it got later and later and finally we came to a moment where in all likelihood, snow would be flying any day and we picked a place.....and got them into the ground. Man it was cold! Winter wind blowing (probably bringing snow with it) and we couldn't get it done fast enough. Eventually we got most of them in and just quit although there were two packages left, the alliums and iris's. After searching the internet for suggestions on how to overwinter the remaining bulbs, and finding little that was helpful, I decided to "plant" the bulbs in rubbermaid containers in some potting soil and then tuck them into the back of the fridge. And about two weeks ago I pulled them out and scrounged around for containers that would fit on my window sill. I came up with several bread pans, filled them with fresh soil and then very gently pulled the tangled, tender roots apart and then set them into the pans. So now I've got flowers coming along and when the blooms are done, and the ground has warmed up, then I will put them out in the garden. How much better than tossing out the left over bulbs as most of the internet advice suggested. Where there is a will, there's a way. Sometimes it pays to think outside the gardening box.

Spring is on its way folks! It will be here soon hooray, hooray, hooray! My window sill today, our gardens tomorrow----well maybe not exactly tomorrow, but you know what I mean. It's coming.