February Bloom Day

I'm a bit early with my Bloom Day post this month, but I know I'm going to be too busy to do it tomorrow, and it makes a change from always being late.

February. Not a word to bring light to the hearts of many gardeners, but if it does have its compensations it's these - primulas.

Primulas are definitely on my favourite flowers list. I love all the different colours and patterns - even if it does make it maddenly difficult to organise the colour schemes of the containers. This one is just a shade more lemony than that one. Another two are both lovely pinks, but they clash horribly. I spend ages selecting them, comparing them side by side, putting them back and starting again ...

I can't keep them through the summer on the balcony. It's just too hot and humid, and they hate it. Nor do they like our hard, limy water. So I usually buy anew each winter. This year's bunch came from a street market I passed by chance when I went to visit my publishers a couple of weeks ago. As I went in I passed a flower stall, and as I came out ...

If you want to know more about primulas - and their relatives the polyanthuses and auriculas - visit the Devonian Botanic Garden, which has loads of information. Did you know for instance that the genus has over 400 species, most of which are found in the Himalayas and China? Or that you can make wine from primroses? Or that auricula growing was a passion amongst the mill workers of Northern England in the mid-nineteenth century?

The primulas aren't the only things blooming on the balcony this month. My pansies have been flowering constantly all winter, as have my geraniums, and the almost dead cyclamens which I wrote about last month are doing well and blooming strongly. But somehow they all look as if they shouldn't really be there. Only the primulas seem to be jumping up and down and saying "Wow, February! Our month!"

And on with the carnival...

Welcome back to the Carnival. I didn't have time to post on Thursday, and stretching Carnival any longer would be pushing it, even for Milan. So we'll have all the rest of the nominations today.

In 2006, before I started blogging, I had great fun seeing the weird and wonderful colour combinations that arose in second generation pansies, which I'd grown from seeds saved the year before. Single or bi-colour plants like those in the photo had combined to give a riot of colours, with blotches and stripes everywhere. So it was great to receive Matron's nomination of this post by Daughter of the Soil on her Purple Pea Project - a great explanation of genetics and the problems of seed saving.

Lots of nominations focused on posts with great photos. Have a look at this archive from Nature Girl. Ladyluz nominated the first post on the page, but I was struck by some of the photos further down. So scroll and enjoy!

Gardenmoma also went for photos, nominating a post from Bliss in the Netherlands from last December. If like me you're a sucker for ice-storm photos, check this one out.

One of my favourite poems is WB Yeat's The Lake Isle of Innisfree. It starts :

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

Jodi, in Nova Scotia, drew on the idea for her post The Bee-Loud Garden, nominated by Kris of Blithewold. Don't miss the photo of the lavatera.

My own nomination? In 2006 Sue of Lodge Lane Nursery won the BBC Gardener of the Year competition. She wasn't allowed to talk about it at the time, but once the programme was released she posted a blog that she'd kept day by day during the competition. It was winning the competition that allowed her to buy the nursery which she now runs and turn professional.

To read it properly, read the first post on the page first and then scroll down to the last - ie the earliest - and read up.

Shortly after I'd announced the idea of the Carnival, Angie of Gardens and Junk contacted me nominating a post by Andee, the Gardener in Chacala. Shortly afterwards, as many of you will know, Andee died. So I'd like to finish with the nomination for Growing Luffa Sponges in Chacala, a post that - as always - showed Andee's interest not only in plants but also in the people around her. Rest in peace Andee.