Will this be the year?

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Happy 2007. My first post of the New Year. I wish it felt more like winter, but it's been unseasonably warm 'round these parts, for the most part. I'm guessing Al Gore is chuckling up his sleeve 'bout now, whispering to himself, "told ya so". I hate the thought of his being right that this planet is getting hotter, but it's hard to ignore the mounting evidence. Anyway, here's hoping we'll get one big snowstorm before this winter is through. I sure hope that snowstorms for the mid-Atlantic states are not a thing of the past. That's an utterly depressing thought, which leads to other thoughts about moving to Maine. Or Canada. Or Alaska.

In the meantime, as much as I love winter, (and I really do), I've started to think a little bit about spring. What has prompted this is an email I recently received from Graceful Gardens, one of the few growers in the U.S. that sells Terry Dowdeswell's New Zealand "New Millennium" Delphiniums as seed-grown plants.


Is this the year I take the plunge and buy a flat or two of them? I really would like to try them again. I grew Delphiniums about 10 years ago (has it really been that long?), and they were spectacular -- the highlight of my garden.

In fact, here's a picture of them, mixed in with larkspurs, in all their glory:


But they were not Terry's Delphs, and they did not last past that one season. And I've just never had the time to grow them from seed, as much I'd love to try that sometime. So, I'm thinking I may buy a bunch of plants, and make a concerted effort to really improve the soil in a large section of that now-neglected, overgrown flower bed, so they'll grow and thrive during our typically wretched summer. And maybe they'll even come back the following year. Ya never know.

Hope springs eternal in the heart of a gardener.

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