Happy Friday y’all!

It’s absolutely beautiful out here lately. Blue skies, birdsong, lush green grass, nice breezes. It did get too hot for a bit though. Almost 90 the other day was a tad much. I had to throw shade cloth on a few tunnels to reduce stress on the flowers, since the tunnels reached the high 90s due to the freakish weather.

Now of course, we are dipping back towards freezing at 33 degrees this morning. Plants covered and heaters back on. Next week in the 20s.

These weird late winters, though joyous and beautiful, can evoke a bit of maternal concern for everything that’s been coaxed into bloom early, knowing that a series of deep frosts are on their way. We’re getting a bunch of extremes out here that can be hard for plants to adapt to.

The Pineapple Pear tree just came into flower last week and with the intense influx of heat, it immediately dropped most of its petals within the same week. The peach and plum trees dropped most of their blossoms too. The heat was just too much for them.

Fresh white petals, drifting down like a gentle rain onto the green grass below is truly a beautiful sight, but it came with a hint of sadness at the overall brevity of a blossom bedazzled pear tree. 2 weeks was reduced to 4 days.

This winter’s dramatic fluctuations also appears to have taken a serious toll on the daffodils. It remains to be seen, but I’m not sure we’ll have much to offer there this year unfortunately.

Meanwhile, the first iris has bloomed in the landscape. The first lunaria have bloomed as well (a favorite of mine). The snowball’s are getting white on the viburnums. The spirea next to the house is white as well. The first hint of red is showing on the Japanese Maple and the dormant brown of the forest is now permeated with a yellowish green. Not only do the trees begin to put out fresh leaves, but also catkins ripe with potential. Wind pollination is fascinating, but it is also a harbinger for allergy season. It’ll be time to seal off the cabin soon, so it doesn’t fill with persistent pollen.

We just shipped off 500 orders of Ice N' Roses hellebore plants this week.  It seems that folks are starting to become as enamored with these lovely flowering plants as we are.  It's hard to overstate the magic of having these flowers, which range from moody to brilliant, fill the forest floor during the peak of cold and dormancy.  They are always our first glimmer of hope and life towards the end of a dark winter and truly lift our spirits on a daily basis.

Amazingly, they continue to remain in flower for well over a month while the rest of the world begins to wake up around them. They survive the cold, are unbothered by deer or rabbits, are unphased by traditional hellebore diseases, and are abundant in stems with forward facing or upright blooms while normal hellebores have nodding blooms. They are just a gift in so many arenas that it is hard to overstate their magnificence.

We still have some really beautiful varieties available if you missed the boat. A lot of the beautiful reds, merlots, and burgundy plants have been overlooked in favor of the whites, which are truly lovely, but our woodlands are planted with a ton of different dark varieties of hellebores. We find them very enchanting, so we feel some folks are missing out, especially if they grow for design work or for selling to designers.

Dark hellebores add dramatic contrast and depth to bouquets, making arrangements more striking and visually complex.  They can serve as a rich backdrop that highlights lighter or more vibrant flowers and pair beautifully with jewel tones.  Burgundy and merlot tones evoke warmth, sophistication, and elegance, often associated with winter and romantic themes, so they are ideal for design work exactly when they are ready to harvest.  We always saw this trend at farmers markets and as wholesalers.  Newer flower customers are always drawn to bright and cheerful flowers, while seasoned designers and artists who use flowers for their work, tend to be heavily drawn towards the more moody and mysterious flowers…dark hellebores in particular.  I personally am not a seasoned artist, but I absolutely see their appeal and love when Mandy uses them in a bouquet to draw out the beauty of picotee ranunculus and pastel poppies.  Absolutely divine.

The mum cuttings program is so abundantly healthy this season that we’re going to make some available extra early, so if you missed those early pre-sale windows that tend to sell out quickly, you’ll be able to get some of our favorites next week!  We always do a “pre-sale” category which is just as it sounds, where you can reserve your cuttings for a specific ship date, months in advance.  But we also do “ready to ship” when we have an unexpected abundance, and those are sold exactly as they become available and shipped right away.  So, “ready to ship” is the bonus opportunity to fill in for folks who missed their earlier window to purchase their favorite varieties in “pre-sale.”

We’ll be bringing lots of poppies to Comer Coffee again this Saturday for the last time, so swing on by to grab some happy. If you aren't local, we also have plenty of poppies for shipping!

We’re also opening the Farm Store this Thursday, March 19th, for the first time this season!  Just in time too, because people keep driving up our road asking about it, so ask no more!  Thursdays–Saturdays we’ll be open throughout spring.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

Steve