Plants in winter + a lovely book

Each season os full of life, even winter. And gardening lovers (like S. and me) know well that autumn and winter are precious periods to enjoy new plants and get ready for spring and summer.

 

Recently we planted a lot of bulbs in our little garden (wild hiacynts - from my parents' garden - and callas, but some tulips bulbs are waiting for us, too): they will be ready to blossom for spring!

We also saved seeds for next year and S. worked a bit around our olive and orange trees.

 

I had some to do with houseplants.

A lovely cyclamen with pink flowers came in our home recently, as a gift from a lovely lady:

 

This is the first time in my life I have this kind of plant and I had to read here and there to learn how to take care for it. Now it is outodoor and it seems very happy to be there, in the cold.

 

When I was still living with my parents I used to buy a hyacinth bulb every winter. I love this flower and I liked to see it growing day after day and bringing colors to our lives when outodoor was foggy and dark (typicall winter weather in northern Italy).

Now I live in the south, where sun is constantly with us even in winter, but I don't resist to hyacinth the same!

I bought one: the florist promised a red flower. Fingers crossed!

 

 

Today we will transplant it in a bigger and more proper plastic pot.

 

Our orchid lost all the flowers at the end of the summer (so sad but part of the game). Now it's growing new roots and even a new branch and a flower! *___*

It's a good orchid!

And it's in good company now, since a new orchid came in the home some weeks ago. It is a neglected plant, almost abandoned in a dark office in the building when S. work. So bad-treated that it "collapsed" and started to need supports to stay in its pot:

 

 

S. decided to bring it at home to save it (with his colleagues' permission, of course!). Now it is loved :)

We are trying to mantain it straight thanks to avanguardistic methods. :P

 

 

Good luck, sweet orchid!!!

 

There's also a new succulent plant with us, too. A tiny tiny plant I found on the ground during a recent walk. Now it has a new home: a yogurt plastic pot :)

 

 



There's a lovely book about gardening and houseplants, if you are interested, and I'm re-reading it right now: The virgin gardener by Laetitia Maklouf (translated in Italian with the funny title "Smalto, rossetto e pollice verde" = "Nail polish, lipstick and green thumb"... yes, it's a book for women!).

It's full of amazing and simple ideas to take plants in our lives, in each season and in unconventional ways.

It's a good reading, believe me!