The Exchanges

 Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others. —Jack Welch

Just a quick update on some stuff blooming in the hoop house. Lot's of stuff seems to have emerged earlier than normal this year, and I've been hearing that said in a lot of gardening circles around the area. The Hoop Petticoats are right on time as usual. 

Hoop petticoat Narcissus blooming in the greenhouse.

It's that time of year again when the NARGS seed exchange is days away from posting, I love looking through the lists and eagerly awaiting the order to arrive after it's placed. One word of caution with the exchanges is to make sure you get positive id, which in the bulb world can be years after the seed is sown. Case in point is the lovely hoop petticoat pictured above, I actually got these as tiny bulbs from the PBS exchange, it was labeled Narcissus jonquilla cordubensis, I was super excited this past week when I saw it shooting up flower buds and thought to myself it does seem oddly early for a jonquilla, although this mild season and the strange weather phenomena we have been having here makes it so phenology is all over the place. I have fritillaria in bud that are usually not peaking out of the ground until early Feburary. So, of course when the Narcissus opened it was pretty clear it was not a the cordubensis I was hoping for and looks to be a Narcissus cantabricus at first glance. I've definitely been fooled a time or two on the exchanges so just a word to the wise to update your labels and check your ID's regularly!

Narcissus 'Julia Jane' is  almost in full bloom now and looking lovely. 

Romulea bulbocodium
There was one day a week ago sunny enough to get it to open but it's been pretty chilly and damp ever since. 

The weather cooled this week enough to finally push some snow into the mountains. We went last week to get find a Christmas tree in the Willamette National Forest and drove all the way up to 4000' and not a stitch of snow at the snow parks. This weekend finally changed all that and the snow is piling up as we speak. 

Cheers, 

Mark