Blue For Flowers – Really Blue

February 10th, 2014

Today I am blue for flowers.  Not just because it is in the midst of a very cold and long winter, but because I am feeling a grieving for the flowers that may be lost to this winter’s cold.

I feel a heart ache, one of those physical sorrows that is right here in my heart.

So I am looking through photos of my garden, gardens I have visited, my home and my art.  I’m seeking some healing and matching of my blue mood.

I am feeling this way because I double checked the temperatures of this winter against the hardiness of many of the flowers I have planted.

The coldest temperature was 14 below zero Fahrenhiet, that’s  minus 25 Celsius, on January 7th of this year.

According to plant hardiness scales, my favorite rose survives to 14 below zero F, so what does that mean?  One degree colder and they are goners?  Was there enough snow cover, did I bury their roots deep enough?

Crape myrtles, of which I planted a large garden full of them last summer, they too will survive to 14 below zero. What will happen to them?

Old wood and new wood hydrangeas. I don’t expect the lush vibrant full of blossom blue hydrangeas like the last few years, since the old wood will have lost the buds.

Oh well, I may have to just plant my gardens as if I live in Minnesota – where I lived before St. Louis – for what will survive the cold.  But at the same time grow plants that love the steamy hot hot summers of Missouri.

Whatever will grow will be beautiful and amazing and I can’t wait.  These photos give me hope.