Month: February 2025

First off, let me thank all of you who braved the bitter cold temperatures and our driveway to pick up the first flowers of the year. Thank you! And it was lovely being able to see you all again after such a long floral break. It’s good to be back in the flowers.

So it is another snowy Sunday, so far, as I write this at 4:11 the farm has been spared the dreaded rain. It has been going back and forth between light snow and sleet which I can deal with, with rain on top, not so much. As our DPW director says, only 33 more days till spring. I say spring is here at Lottarock at least flower wise, winter wise? Not so much.

After digging out tomorrow, I will be hauling out flowers to the cooler, empty crates to the greenhouse for the ranunculus and anemones to grow in if the nighttime temperatures stay out of the single digits for more than a night. Usually by now the corms have been soaked and starting to sprout, but who said this is usual? Or maybe it is a normal winter and we have gotten used to the past few years. I don’t know, but I would like to get them started. Patience. Why lose a crop due to my impatience. I also need to haul in this next batch of tulip crates. New varieties are on the horizon.

On a side note, I am so happy I had my shoulder fixed last March because if I hadn’t, I would not be a happy camper. I wouldn’t be able to clear the snow off the greenhouse and tunnel, I wouldn’t be able to haul tulip crates anywhere and I would be miserable. Go healed shoulder and fitness!

Go Spring!

I will be back next week, hopefully it won’t be snowing. Steve will do his little bit next and I will go out and do animal chores. until next week.

Allie. I dream of flowers, do you?

Outside it is cold and white having a fresh 7.5 inches of snow delivered last night but inside it is flower time. That is right, I have flowers! Better yet? Plenty to go around to erase those winter blahs.

Tulips, narcissus and very possibly hyacinths that I am trialing. I will send out the newsletter giving details on Thursday for Friday’s blooms to remind you all but the flower shed or rather the tool shed at this point will be open on Friday Feb 14, that’s right, Valentine’s Day so get some flowers for a special someone as well as yourself. Anyway, the shed will be open from 10-2:00, or until sold out. Because these are the first flowers of the season I don’t expect them to last long so don’t dally. Oh yeah, wear your boots. We might be shoveled but there are still patches of snow.

Besides flowers happening, so are the seedlings. Germination is looking good for the seeds that have been started and the dirty room is really getting full. It is a good thing I am tall because the paths are about twelve inches wide.

I had a moment of weakness last week and because they had just become available I have ordered another fifty flowering shrub, foliage liners. So sometime in mid March, 90 bare root plants will be arriving on my doorstep, along with the forty willows to root. I hope most of this snow will be gone by then because I have plants to plant. I might have some space in the cooler to hold them, they could possible go out into the greenhouse, but even that is going to be filling up quickly. We will just have to wait and see I guess. At least I know where I am going to plant them.

Soon I will be trudging out to the willows to start harvesting them, and also the lovely yellow stemmed cornus to round out the early spring offerings.

I will send this over to Steve now so he can proof read me and write his little ditty.

Until next week, Allie. I dream of flowers, do you?

Well the silly groundhog saw his shadow this morning so we have six more weeks of winter. Duh. I could have told you that. Spring doesn’t happen by the calendar until March 22, six weeks away! Here at Lottarock, spring is here. Very NEARLY.

I have been busy harvesting the first of the narcissus, The first crate is almost completely harvested and the stems are in the cooler. The first crates of tulips are soooo close.

As much as I would LOVE to say, I will have flowers this Friday, I think not. I will however have flowers for Valentine’s Day, and what can be better than local, farm fresh flowers for valentines day? Or any day for that matter.

It will be interesting what imported flowers there will be this year for Valentine’s Day with all the new tariffs. This time of year almost all of the flowers come from South America, especially those long stemmed red roses. Tulips are imported from Prince Edward Island so they will also be affected by the Canadian tariffs. Looks like local might be the way to go! Go Local Flowers!

The dirty room sure is getting full. Right now there are 14 crates of bulbs, and another 5 or 6 come in tomorrow. I hope harvesting picks up soon because I will be out of space after tomorrow’s crate pull! Tomorrow the first set of seedlings get transplanted, so there goes a shelf on the grow rack, and the cool flowers get seeded tomorrow as well. I love a tetris challenge, which is good, because ’tis the season.

I will be sending out the newsletter soon for flower shed times and all that fun stuff.

Until next week, Allie. I dream of flowers, do you?