It was 52 degrees on Saturday and I was actually out starting to do yard work. People ask me sometimes when you should start raking in the spring. I believe that you should start whenever you can get to it. I find there is plenty of work to do, no matter when you start. So I raked away and picked up sticks. There were little sprouts and shoots of various things. They were either sprouting as I watched, or they had been in sprout-suspended- animation for 2 months.
So where is the picture contest. The last week was the most competitive all year. It was nip and tuck all week, with all four pictures having considerable support. The electronic voters slightly preferred the castor bean seedpod, the crazy red thing (CRT). At the same time when the email vote was added in, there was a tie for first, between the CRT and the white fall crocus. For that reason they both have advanced to the playoff round.
Here are the final results from last week, with the email vote being the second number:
Little Brown Bearded Iris 14+3=17 for 23.3%
White crocus 15+5=20 for 27.4%
Pizzazz Lily 12+4=16 for 21.9%
Crazy red thing 20+0=20 for 27.4%
Total 61+12=73
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So here we are after 12 weeks. You have selected 16 pictures for the next four weeks. I have grouped them for the playoffs. There are four seeded pictures representing the top four vote getters by percentages.
The four seeded pictures are:
White poppy 54.9% in week 10
Waterlily 46.2% in week 6
Orchid cactus 44.8% in week 7
Monsella tulip 43.2% in week 3
Here is the rest of the field:
Winners
Purple Anemone 42.3 in week 1
Iris Jeweled Crown 41.2 in week 5
Yellow Poppy 41.2 in week
Bluebells 39.4 in week 4
Coneflower 39.7 in week 9
White Crocus 38.8 in week 2
Blue Crocus 38.6 in week 11
Tie
White crocus and crazy red thing 27.4%- week 12
Wild cards (reduced to 3 since there was a tie in week 12)
Red Poppy 35.8 in week 7
Pulmonaria 33.8 in week 6
Shirley 32.4 in week 5
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I put each of the seeded pictures in a separate group and then sorted the rest so that there would not be two of any plant type in one group. I also tried to sort by color but that was harder.
In the finals there are 3 poppies, 3 crocuses, and 4 white flowers.
By month the 16 pictures break down as follows: The number in parenthesis is the breakdown of the 48 in the contest.
March 0 (1)
April- 4 (5)
May- 3 (10)
June – 2 (7)
July- 4 (19)
August-0 (1)
September-0 (2)
October-2 (2)
November-1 (1)
I find it interesting that of the April pictures in the contest 4 of 5 made the finals. In addition all 3 of the pictures after October 1 made the finals.
So who do we have this first week.
First there is the Monsella tulip. What a combination of red and yellow. Tulips don’t get much better than this.
Second there is the spring white crocus. That little bit of orange really shows up against that white. How soon will we have crocuses? Maybe they will be poking up by the time the last vote is counted by the middle of March. Maybe they will be poking up by Wednesday.
Third, here is the picture of the bluebells. Oh those bluebells. They come up by the thousands. Actually they are the second blue carpet in the spring. There is the scilla that first shows up and then the bluebells come later. This picture is actually taken on April 27.
Finally there is there is this wonderful coneflower. I was looking at catalogues this weekend and you can really get some wonderful combinations today with different colored coneflowers.
So vote away. Get your friends to vote. 2008 was a blue year. Can a blue picture be the finals winner?
For your bonus enjoyment I leave you with a picture of the emerging snowdrop.
Enjoy the week. Pretend that spring is just about here. Philip
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