Above is a sunny window facing southwest. The yellow tags are sticky traps for whiteflies, which can shrivel leaves and discourage a plant to death. The spray bottles are Neem Oil and insecticidal soap, used on aphids. There are many pots of special lantanas in this room, and they are loved by whiteflies, although they are not as damaged by the flies as the tender salvias are.
Salvias, Gardenmeister fuschias, and tobacco plants. All doing well.
A canna, potted up and kept cool and dry. Keeping cannas in soil is easier for me and safer on the cannas than keeping them wrapped in newspaper kept damp. The newspaper dries out, the cannas shrivel. and a plant that cost 25.00 plus an hefty shipping fee is lost.
Though early spring is the time catalogs arrive, I give them just a glance, for I order from their company on line. Ordering by mail is ordering blind, for by the time the nursery gets an order by mail, what you sent for may be sold out. Nurseries know what they have and their sites know what they do not.
I don’t know how the online nurseries are staying in business, considering that a $90.00 dollar order might cost $35.00 to ship standard. Pay for overnight air can exceed the cost of the plants. I can only think that plant lovers love plants and spare no expense, even if they have to scrounge elsewhere.
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Sites From the World Outside
A Winter sunrise.
Open water on the Middle Branch of the Piscataquog River in New Boston. The river has not frozen this year, and upstream, Gregg Mill Pond is ice free. This has been a balmy winter with the exception of the flash freeze and high wind over Christmas that left us without power for four days.
Who lives here? I suspect a raccoon.
And below, a photo of the leathery creeping leaves of the beloved New England wildflower Trailing Arbutus, fragrant and blooming in April on the field edges of the Oak and Pine forest.
Gardening On Granite 