Flowers for Nana

Dave's mom, who is 85, stays with us during the winter, and although she is mobile, she doesn't go out much so I try to make the view from her favorite chair as interesting as possible. The violas above are one thing I have put in my herb bed to provide interest; they will be pretty for much of the winter and also in the spring. In hindsight I should have gotten pansys because the blossoms are larger and easier to see from the house. Next year.

I moved the birdbath around to the house side of the rosemary bush so I could put the cold frame on the south side and also moved all but one of my perennial herbs, also for the cold frame, but they provide a little visual interest too, at least until they get frost bitten. So far they have survived back to back 27* frosts, so they are doing pretty well. I need to harvest my chives before they die back, but they are so nice and green right now!

The next thing I added were some bird feeders; she loves to watch the birds! At her house she will have twenty or so hummingbirds buzzing around her porch in the summer. That is the down side of her only being here in the winter, no hummers. But between the birdbath and feeders she sees a lot of birds and enjoys them. Another up side is that the feeder is above an area that I want to mulch, and sunflower seed hulls make excellent mulch. We should have a good inch of mulch by spring!
Now, the reason that I thought about all this today is because while I was at Lowe's today buying stuff to make the hoop house (I'm so excited!) I saw crocus bulbs on clearance. The end of November seems late to be planting spring bulbs, but really, it has been so warm that they might have started growing had I planted any sooner. So I bought a bag of bulbs and planted them in the herb garden and along the driveway, since she and Dave walk down to get the mail every day. I'm sure they will be a delight to all of us at the beginning of March when we are all sick of dead trees and brownness.  Shhhh, don't tell her, it's a surprise!