Spring flowers in January

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Having lived in Minnesota, a state that’s in the middle of the US and hangs from the Canadian border by clinging to an icicle, I suspect that what my neighbors in Cornwall call winter is really spring. Here are a few flowers that bloomed not in January (the headline’s a lie) but in December.

Primroses on a neighbor’s lawn

Camellia, ourside a differnt neighbor’s house

Periwinkle–ours. It’s a good thing it’s pretty, because it’s trying to take over the yard.

Wishing you good weather, wherever you are. Apologies for the not-quite-convincing post. I need a bit of down time.

41 thoughts on “Spring flowers in January”

    • Confession: I stacked up several posts before the holidays and this was the one where I ran out of steam–and ran into some flowers on the neighbors’ lawn. By now, I’ve had my break and I’m back in action.

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      • Glad to hear you are back in action even before I knew you were off recharging your batteries. Here on California’s Central Coast, flowers bloom all year but seeing your flower pics reminded me of when I lived just east of Sacramento (a reviled 27 yrs) and would visit my prior home in Santa Barbara. When I opened the car door, the air smelled perfumed. So wonderful. I also remember squishing around on Anne Hathaway’s lawn long ago, admiring all the little bulbs blooming in February. I’d never seen that since grass and flowers were strictly segregated in my giant useless lawns. One nice thing about being almost 80 is having so many memories to be pleasantly triggered. For me, another is having hope to make one more visit to your adopted land. On we go. Wishing you a happy, interesting 2024.

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        • Thanks. I hope 2024 isn’t too interesting. After the last few years, I feel like we could all stand to have things settle down now.

          May many flowers bloom in your memory–as well as elsewhere.

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  3. Flowers? In January? Although they’re beautiful, should we be worried about what’s happening to the planet? We had pink blossom on beech trees in December, which was quite unsettling.

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  4. The flowers are lovely. Here in Minnesota, the icicle melted. We’ve had only a couple inches of snow, mostly gone and I can see brown/green grass from my window. A week ago, lilac trees were budding, as were magnolia trees and several others that will get sucker-punched when/if it gets really cold. The older humanoids are happy because it’s easy walking but it’s a sign that SOMETHING IS WRONG. We’re fiddling while the place burns. On that cheery note, Happy New Year!

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    • I wonder if those knitters who like to yarn bomb places couldn’t make little jackets for the lilac and magnolia buds. The are going to have a hard time. You are, of course, right about the problem, but it’s hard not to feel these ridiculous bits of hope when it happens.

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  7. Beautiful flowers. It is summer in full swing here in Australia, full blooms and greenery all round. I guess we are the quite the opposite from winter for now. Hope you enjoyed your down time. Wishing you a wonderful year ahead.

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      • It does rather blow the mind. :D When I arrived here in July of 2014 it was something like 35C and 16 hours previously I’d been shivering in the snow of an Aussie winter. (I lived in the Blue Mountains where we actually did get a few skiffs of snow every so often in winter)

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    • Many thanks, but it’s Ellen, please.

      In a rare effort to understand what I’m actually doing here, I asked Lord Google to translate massel und broche into English for me. It told me it meant massel and broche. I must befluent in German, since I already understood the one word he changed.

      May your new year be a good one.

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        • Ah! Baruch I recognize from either Yiddish or Hebrew, neither of which I really know but I do have a handful of words I can use with relative accuracy. And massel, now that I think about it, sounds like a nice parallel to the Yiddish mazel. Many thanks, both for the translation and the good wishes.

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  11. You wouldn’t believe the mild winter we’re having. I’ve never seen anything like it. No snow? OK, that happens from time to time, But the December temps were crazy: 40s and 50s on/around Christmas. It’s divine for my work commute, but upsetting given the impending doom (actually, the doom appears to be here already) for Mother Earth.

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    • I didn’t know. A friend from Duluth wrote me a while back about snow and I think I fairly randomly decided that everything–or at least that one thing–had fallen back into place. Oh, the power of things we’d like to believe.

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