Albert's Greenhouse

So I'm reading the garden blog-o-sphere. And everybody's blogging about spring. It's in the air - the snow's melting - time to get your seeds planted, clean up the yard. Almost mowing season again.

Where I live, the case could be made that it's really spring about 10 months out of the year. The climate is, by any definition, mild. We had no hard freeze this year, and I doubt that even the official temperature at the airport dipped below 32F.

So people in much colder climes are getting cherry blossoms. Good for them. When do I get mine?

This is what I have:


Encouraging, yes, but hardly a match for, say, Vancouver right now.

It's admittedly a pitiful tree. I got it late in the season from the local hardware store, and planted it into the wet, mucky ground, where it has barely hung on through various abuses for a couple of years now. It's a double weeping cherry, a plant with at least two grafts. Sort of a frankenstein plant, with roots from one tree, a trunk from another, and branches from a third. It has stayed basically the same size for two years, though I detect a slight increase in vigor this spring. I walk by bigger trees flowering in their pots for less money at the big box store down the road, and I hope that someday I will be rewarded for my patience.

At least I have the peach blossoms already, with the promise of a little fruit this year.