Flowers Around The House

[Beyond]

Okay, I guess I'll have to stick to snow and English. (That was very funny.)

Rob

Me two. And yes, it was.

[Chris Peterson]

Okay, I guess I'll have to stick to snow and English. (That was very funny.)

Nonsense. Swedish is one of the easiest languages on Earth. There are some pronunciation difficulties for an English speaker, but the grammar is regular and simple, and many of the words share roots with English words. If you want to move to Sweden, you could take an immersive class and be capable of decent conversations in a few weeks.

Go for it!

[bystander]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Ann, how difficult is it to learn Swedish? I wish to trade in my two snow shovels for a garden spade.

Well, if you ask this guy, it's kind of hard.

Warning: Don't listen to him if you can't stand swearing or if you're allergic to spelling mistakes.

[Ann]

You haven't moved to Sweden yet, Rob? Just as well, because the weather this week hasn't been nice. It hasn't been cold cold, certainly not so that temperatures have dropped below freezing, but it has been overcast, windy, damp and unpleasant. The flowers have been thinking twice (and thrice, as Shakespeare would have said) about venturing forth from the ground.

Yes, but today it was a bit sunny, and temperatures climbed to 8^oC. I decided I would go looking for Tussilago farfara, a quite lovely yellow flower. (And at this time of year, I can forgive any flower for displaying a color I normally wouldn't adore, just because the landscape here is in such sore need of color.)

So I went cycling to Katrinetorp. This is a quite lovely mansion built in the year 1800 by a rich merchant who wanted a summerhouse far, far from the city. And indeed this part of Malmö still feels like the countryside,, unlike, say, the summerhouse of Malmö's most important sons, Frans Suell, whose summerhouse was built at about the same time in what was then the countryside but is now central Malmö.

So I went to Katrinetorp, or rather I went to the other side of "the outer ring freeway", Yttre Ringvägen. Here there are tall "banks" on both sides of the road, and on the south side of it, away from the traffic, is the kind of sunlit poor soil where few things will grow, but Tussilago farfara thrives. Actually, when I got there - after cycling up a long mud hill and a long, steep overpass - I could see no flowers at all, only dead yellow-gray grass and some gravel. But as I turned around to leave, I saw it - one specimen! (And then another one, but it was barely open, although I could see its yellow color.)

And afterwards I cycled around in Malmö and found a decent number of crocuses, both yellow-orange, white, deep purple and light lilac. In my own street I found quite a lot of hepatica nobilis, and I also found about ten specimens of Scilla siberica. The hazel trees are in bloom, with their tiny, reddish-pink flowers.

Ann

[rstevenson]

You haven't moved to Sweden yet, Rob? Just as well, because the weather this week hasn't been nice.

The weather here improved, and my mood with it, so my moving plans are on hold for now. We're still covered in snow, but at least now it's melting and not accumulating.

Rob

[orin stepanek]

We're at the start of another cold spell; and some new snow is on the ground! The daffs and crocus are waiting for Spring; and Spring is waiting for the snow to melt! We are fortunate that there is only about an inch on the ground; more is forecast however.

[orin stepanek]

I cleaned off the thatch from the flower beds the other day! Under all that; i noticed some crocus blooming!

[Ann]

The first daffodils are in bloom, although they aren't numerous yet. And in the old churchyard downtown, the yellow winter aconites have withered, and blue scillas are taking over. (Warning: that last picture is some 845 kb.)

I have also seen the first forsythias in bloom. We also have some (quite small) stunningly magenta azalea bushes. There is also Viburnum farreri, a very hardy bush. Also Prunus x amygdalopersica (West.) Rehder, a lovely and early tree. There are also a few cherry trees in bloom, and some other trees that I can't identify.

However, although we have had mild weather for a really long time now, it hasn't been very sunny, and the flowers are not as happy as I imagine they otherwise would have been.

Ann

[geckzilla]

Man, I put my first orchid into a new pot at the end of last year and it was doing great. It had new growth everywhere, four inflorescences all lined up and ready to bloom and then right as they began blooming everything just fell apart. Almost all of the roots rotted and died and the plant is now smaller than it was when I got it, I think. The leaves have all lost their turgidity and have gone from feeling like pliable, smooth, shiny plastic to something like soft leather. The rotting has stopped but it's also not growing or recovering at all. Makes me sad!

[orin stepanek]

I wish I could help; you might want to talk to an expert! There might be a reason for your plight!

[Ann]

I bought an orchid three years ago, and I got it cheap, because it would soon lose its flowers. They said in the flower-shop that it would get new flowers, however. Well, after I had been waiting for ages, a new stalk with tiny buds appeared. I was happy! The stalk grew... and then it stopped growing. And then the tiny buds withered and fell off.

Last Christmas I bought an incredibly handsome ardisia, elegant in shape, with an abundance of richly dark green leaves and red berries. As soon as I had brought it home, however, it started shedding leaves. It lost more and more of them, I gave it new soil, but nothing helped. A few weeks ago I threw it away.

Yes, but outside there are more and more flowers. Yesterday there were a lot of yellow Gagea lutea in the old churchyard, along with all the blue scillas. There were even a few Ranunculus ficaria, a lovely little flower with shiny yellow petals.

My mother has a few tulips, too. They look something like this.

Ann

[Ann]

What a lovely day! And there are so many flowers in bloom right now. Yesterday there were both Hepatica nobilis (note: a 900 Kb picture), Anemone nemorosa (wood anemone) and Anemone ranunculoides were in bloom at the same time. Usually you get the Hepatica nobilis forst, then the wood anemones, then the Anemone ranunculoides.

And really, there are so many flowers in bloom right now!

Ann

[orin stepanek]

2 of my Daff's opened yesterday; soon there will be about a hundred! I hope we don't get a late snow storn that would cover them.

[Ann]

Oh, and I forgot! I have seen a couple of big, fat, yellow dandelions, too!

As a kid I hated dandelions. I didn't hate them because they were yellow (in case you think I did), but because my Mom told me they were nasty and because I thought their stems were icky. (Naturally I couldn't resist picking them, and my fingers got all sticky.) Of course, if they had been blue, I would have liked them no matter what their stems were like and regardless of what my mother told me!

Now I mostly like dandelions, even if I think they are a bit too much when they completely take over a lawn or, say, a vegetable garden.

But I love the first dandelions of spring. They are such lovely harbingers of the sweet month of May, and of summer.

Ann

[Chris Peterson]

I saw our first pasque flower yesterday, along the trail between our house and my lab. Growing out of a clump of locoweed. This is the earliest I've seen pasque flowers, breaking the previous record of April 1 a few years ago. Spring is definitely coming earlier every year.

No other flowers yet, but there is some loco coming in, a little bit of greening of the wild grasses, a bit of sage. We've still got some good patches of snow scattered around, and with all the sun I think the plants are doing well. Just have to hope we continue to get some occasional moisture for the next couple of months.

[Ann]

Click to view full size image

Wild garlic in bloom. Photo: Kurt Stüber

In Europe and Asia there is a plant, Allium ursinum, known in English as ramsons, buckrams, wild garlic, wood garlic and a few other names.

I found some young tender specimens of this plant in the park right next to the condominium where I live. They grew right next to the wood anemones, which looked like hundreds of brilliantly white little stars on the ground.

Wild garlic tastes and smells much like "real" garlic, and in southern Scandinavia it is often served in trendy restaurants during spring. Usually you don't find wild garlic until late April, but everything is early this year.

Oh, and if you visit Europe and happen to drink some milk which tastes strangely of garlic, then it is likely that the cow that produced the milk had grazed some wild garlic!

Ann

[Ann]

Yesterday was overcast, muggy, and sometimes misty, sometimes foggy. Yet it was mild, and I couldn't resist a rather long cycling tour in Malmö. But because there is so much construction going on in many parts of Malmö, and because I couldn't see any of the most familiar landmarks because of the fog, I got lost! Of course I don't get really lost in Malmö. I just have to keep cycling, and eventually I'll find myself in a place that I know well. But I did keep cycling for a long time, and I continually asked people if they could point me in the right direction. "I'm going to Hammar's Park, do you know if it is this way?" "Hammar's Park? Oh, that's along way off..."

Yes, but I saw all sorts of flowers as I was cycling, and many, many trees in bloom. There were so many specimens of Prunus cerasifera, and there were other kinds of pink cherry trees whose exact designation I don't know, and then there were so many specimens of a tree whose name I don't know at all, which all covered in small white flowers.

And there were Primula veris! And stinging nettles! I could have made myself a small bowl of soup.

And then there were so many flowers that I had seen already, but they were there in abundance.

Noah: How many children will I have, God?
God: You will have as many descendants as there are scillas on the ground in spring.
Noah: Surely that is not possible???

Ann

[orin stepanek]

I had to post my Creeping Phlox; they are really nice this year!

[geckzilla]

I've got some of those too, Orin. They are easily some of my favorite flowers. Very small and unimpressive alone but all together like that they're great. Of course, for some reason they are also the favored spot for the cats to take dumps in.

[orin stepanek]

I've got some of those too, Orin. They are easily some of my favorite flowers. Very small and unimpressive alone but all together like that they're great. Of course, for some reason they are also the favored spot for the cats to take dumps in.

They pretty much take care of themselves, except for thinning once in a while. Cat poo is a pretty good fertilizer, and the Phlox pretty much hides everything!

[Beyond]

Hmm... So, it is not wise to step in the Phlox and be flummoxed by a cat-poo shoe.

[orin stepanek]

Hmm... So, it is not wise to step in the Phlox and be flummoxed by a cat-poo shoe.

Well; I don't care to have people trampling through my flower beds anyway!

[Ann]

There are, to my knowledge, six Paulownia Tomentosa trees in Malmö, and they are beginning to look quite lovely now. When fully in bloom, these trees are covered in large, snapdragon-like blue-violet flowers.

I know of only one specimen of Davidia involucrata in my home town, but it is in bloom and looking lovely.

We also have plenty of Wisteria sinsensis here. (The picture was taken by a Danish woman, as Chris will notice, but this one is Swedish.) Wisteria Lane anyone?

May is certainly a lovely month, the most beautiful month of the year.

Ann

[orin stepanek]

Couple of pretties for today!

columbine.jpg (45.17 KiB) Viewed 35535 times

[orin stepanek]

I don't know what these are, but are really pretty in the morning!