It sounds like January was a tough month for us all in the Hudson Valley. I'm right there with you. We had to prep for a large wedding that took place on February 1st, and I had 2 real problems.
First, it's been the coldest winter in years. My bones hurt just thinking about it! The studio is somewhat insulated, but not enough to feel secure that the literal thousands of dollars of flowers wouldn't freeze. So we had to bring them inside of the house every night. Plus, I was creating a custom seating chart display (more on that below). And it was so hard to use power tools and get the wood stained in freezing weather.
Then, I sprained my ankle and quickly learned that, as an old-ish person now, recovery is not like back in my high school lacrosse-playing days. By the wedding day, I was walking, but I was also chewing down ibuprofen because being on my feet for such long hours was causing a lot of dull background aching. I'm very thankful to have a few months to fully recover before our next wedding.
But January was not all bad! Despite issues with getting the stain to dry on time, I was so extremely pleased with the custom seating chart my husband Alistair helped me build for the wedding. It looked a little bit like we were make a bunch of tiny coffins in the beginning (as someone on Instagram accurately noted), but in the end, I thought it was very impactful.
Tada!!!
Also, some garden work began despite the many days that never even got above freezing. I woke up the ranunculus corms I saved from last year. I ordered 4 different kinds of blushy ranunculus last year from a rando online supplier I found, and they were pretty much duds. 3 of 4 produced almost nothing, but fortunately 1 variety (Ginette) did great and produced tons of new corms! I was worried I did something wrong, since last year was my first time ever trying ranunculus, but I bought some cheap corms from a big box supplier as a comparison. Those sprouted great and produced very healthy plants under the same conditions. So I feel relatively confident the quality of the corms I got from the rando supplier was the issue. That said, I have encountered a problem each year that I can't find anything on the internet about. So I'm here to ask the class. Do you ever get plants that start growing strongly (sometimes for weeks!) and then just give up, flop over, and die? If so, do you know what causes this? Am I doing something wrong? Look at all my healthy bubs on the left, and then just in the last day or two, I've gotten 4 floppy dead guys that you can see on the right. Any tip would be appreciated! I know enough to know I don't know much when it comes to ranunculus.
My only other seed starting in January was foxglove because if you start them really early, you can sometimes get fall flowers, even though they are biennials. I brought back the most beautiful yellow foxglove seed from the Chelsea Flower Show last year, and I am praying to get to see even just a stem or two of flowers on it this fall. I don't think seed is available for this variety in the US yet (because the UK always keeps the best seeds for itself -- I'm looking at you verbascum breeders!!!), but if I am able to harvest any this year, let me know if you'd like some. I am happy to share!
Anyway, here's hoping there's more flowers in all of our futures soon!
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