While not much is blooming, winter feels like the most crucial time on the farm. Winter is the deadline to get our cool season seedlings into the ground. Our growing season may be long, but our cool season is short, and if our hardy annuals don't have enough time to put down strong, deep roots, they'll have little time to flower before our very hot summer sets in.
We do have some blooms, however. Our anemones are starting to blossom in force. Our field grown-tulips, which we had planted in October, are starting to bud, as have our daffodils, which have put on nice green growth after a long summer dormancy. We were a bit late getting our ranunculus in the ground, and hope to get a nice flush before the nights get too hot. Annual foliage is hard to find this time of the year, but we were fortunate to inherit Bradford pear, pittosporum, viburnum, olive trees, rosemary, and mountain cedar on our property.
In the meantime, our hardy annuals — foxglove, sweet pea, larkspur, nigella, dianthus, snapdragons, and campanula, to name a few — have been transplanted into their beds and are quietly putting down roots as they wait for the days to lengthen. It's the time of the year when we start to get a taste of the growing season ahead, and it's only a matter of time before the fields no longer look so bare!