The Flower Dilemma



Last flowers in the rock garden



Pansies

So I love flowers and plants - any kind. In bouquets at weddings, growing in the forest, in flower beds and rock gardens, house plants, and summer planters, window boxes and hanging baskets. I grew up in England and because of the climate you could just get a small cutting from someone else's garden, stick it in the ground and it would grow. My home town of Rugby wins awards every year for the hanging baskets on its main thoroughfare through town. My mother had an incredible perennial garden and collected cuttings from all over the place. She even took one cutting of everything from one garden to the other when we moved house - kind of her own Noah's Ark. Then I moved to Colorado, where the climate is oh so dry, we may have snow in June and then again in August, and there are a lot of temperatures below freezing. I love winter and everything it has to offer for the active lifestyle, but the flowers are gone. So every Fall I hang on to flowers. Recently a neighbor left for a trip to Europe and she gave me all of the planter boxes and hanging baskets that she creates herself every year. They are gorgous with lobelia



Lobelia

- one of my favorites with its vivid blue and purple and white pansies. Lobelia is anything but hardy and will be gone with the first hard frost - the pansies can resist a bit of cold. So for the past month I have checked weather.com every day to figure out the evening temperatures and every time the nighttime low is predicted at 34 degrees or below I bring all of my plants into the house (I had done my own plants for my main floor balconies as well) - a total of seven hanging baskets, plus three window boxes and two pots of double geraniums. I have also transplanted all the geraniums that were in my front little piece of garden and have them in planters to save them for next season. It is a true labor of love but it makes a mess that I have to constantly clean up and the house looks like a landscaping store. But you see there are tons of buds left on the plants and I cannot sabotage their growth. So inbetween working on the web site for High Country Activities http://bit.ly/bWO2rm I carry on my fight against winter's approach, even though I love winter and everything it has to offer, http://bit.ly/9Mld1D as one of my favorite places to hang out, and act as the protector of my natural friends. At some point I will have to let go but it will be a sad day. 



Living Room Plant Sanctuary



Buds waiting to bloom in planter