I suppose it really does work out better if the blooms of the Christmas season reach their peak after the 25th of December.  

I will have more time to enjoy them while I relax after the hustle and bustle of pre-Christmas preparations. 

Imagine me sitting in an easy chair by the window so I have view out into the garden where I can see the birds flitting around the feeders I set out and filled with the finest “boss”, black oil sunflower seed. 

If I crane my neck just a bit I can the spot where I planted the Christmas Rose, Helleborus niger, several years ago.  It didn’t bloom on Christmas, but is loaded with buds and could bloom anytime the temperatures get above freezing and the sun shines..

Just a few steps away in the sun room, the three amaryllis bulbs I potted up the weekend before Thanksgiving have sent up seven bloom stalks.

They are a bit taller than I’d like, mostly I think because they didn’t get enough light.  They are on the table in the center of the room, equal distant from all the windows. Next year, I’ll put them by a window and then once they’ve started to bloom on shorter stalks, I’ll move the pot to a location where I can enjoy them.

In another three pots, all the lily of the valley pips, Convallaria majus, are sending up shoots.

This is the first year I’ve tried to grow these indoors.  I look forward to smelling the blooms, which might be open by New Year’s Day.   Later in the spring, I’ll plant these out in the garden.

I also have more Christmas Rose plants…

Garden fairies here.

We are garden fairies and we would like to make it known that the bookshelves are in and the dining room is now a library.  But it is a library without books. Carol has no time to sit by the window and gaze at bird feeders or moon over her holiday blooms. Chop, chop, there are books to move. The book fairies are impatiently waiting to ride the library cart from the back room to the library.  We don’t know what they will do if Carol doesn’t move them now to the library.  Now. 

We are garden fairies and we are sorry to have hijacked this post, but we saw no other way to get the word out, to exert some pressure, to call Carol out for her lack of moving books to the library.  Thank you for your understanding and support. ~ Violet Sweetpea Maydreams, Chief Scribe and Self-Appointed Head Librarian for the Garden Book Library at May Dreams Garden.