Tanya spent all morning working in her flower garden transplanting stuff. I know some were asters as she gave a bunch to Maxim. Now she and Lena are planting tomatoes. Today. May 1st. Big holiday in this part of the world. This was NOT Lena's idea. Tanya wants her flower boxes back so she can put her petunias in them.
One of this morning's jobs was trimming the flowers off the red tulips. Tanya explained the science of tulip breeding. Red is THE dominant colour and will eventually change the colour of all the tulips if left alone. I thought they grew from bulbs only but I guess there is some kind of pollination takes place too. Once the bulbs have had a chance to get big, Tanya will dig them up and store them dry for the summer, then plant them again in the late fall.
She has a bunch of miniature flowers - hyacinths, daffodils, crocuses, irises and even lilies. The latter she just discovered from some of the bulbs she bought and planted last fall. She knows WHERE everything is planted but sometimes forgets exactly WHAT is planted until it blossoms and surprises her.
It is 7:30 pm. She says she is too tired to eat supper.
It is not looking like spring here on May 1 with no leaves on the trees or flowers yet. We had a warm April but today it is +1C, mixed rain and snow.
ReplyDeleteThe flowers are beautiful. The hard work is evident.
I greatly enjoyed the photos, but wasn't sure at first (I looked it up) whether you meant F. or C. I guess if it was F. then you wouldn't be hearing frogs and seeing flowers, eh.
ReplyDeleteFeel free to post more photos. You're in a part of the world that is unknown to me and many others, I'm sure. I had a neighbor who was from there, and actually fought with the Red Army in WWII, but he didn't talk about it much. You mentioned at one point that the women are beautiful, so I've been dutifully saving up my pennies as the women here get fatter and fatter.
Snowbrush
ReplyDeleteNever heard of fat bottom Girls. ;)
I like seeing the pictures too and hearing your stories. Makes the world seem so much smaller.
I have my Dahlias in bloom along with petunias and potato vines and stone crop. But Tanya is a PLANTER and I'm a "put it here and hope it doesn't die" type of gardener. It also strikes me as weird that the flowers of the field require NO maintenance, while the ones we plant for our enjoyment have the requirements of a newborn child.
ReplyDeleteGlad you like the pictures.
ReplyDeleteActually, there are a great many untended flower gardens thriving in areas where people used to have dachas and gardens, now abandoned, back in Soviet times when Zhovtii Vody was booming.
Tulips do very well competing and they show up in the strangest places. Like ditches.
Here's a bit of trivia for you. Most of the tulips from Holland are actually grown in the Skagit Valley right up the road from me. And get this, they grow them here, send them to Holland and are then sold all over the world as well as back here as imported from Holland.
ReplyDeletehttp://gardening.savvy-cafe.com/tag/tulips/
ReplyDeleteThere is a good deal of information on the above site about growing tulips and a bit of history. They grow wild in much of Asia. Kazakhstan (near Almaty) grow '000 of acres. They may also be exported via Holland. Reasons for growing them in various locations may have to do with disease control and more likely with off-seasonal flowering.
Our neighbour grows about 2 acres of daffodils and tulips. When they blossom, he clips the heads, lets the bulbs grow big and then digs them up. He plants them in his greenhouse in November and they bloom early, with multiple stems per bulb, at which time he sells the cut flowers in teh local markets.