mears garden: Week 17- March 8- the finals- 13 days until Spring

voting update- Wednesday, 7am. The email vote so far, in order, is 2,1,2,and 8. So at the moment the totals with the email vote are 20,11,20 and 25.

Greetings. So here we are at the final week of the contest. We are mostly finished with winter. There are a few dirty piles of snow left. The temperature will drop into the teens later this week. But it really is mostly done.
I was able to go outside these last few mornings and clean up parts of the garden. I try to do a little bit each day. On Friday I even filled up a container of leaves over my lunch hour. My garden has the amazing ability to keep me busy raking up last year’s stuff. I sometimes think that it regenerates itself between rakings.
The snowdrops are in full flower. The first winter aconite is set to bloom. I heard from a friend in Iowa City that she had crocuses.

And then… it was Sunday morning and they took away that garden time. Daylight savings. Yuck. Actually with a very rainy day it got to be light by around 8 o’clock. I would like it if you could decide for yourself when you wanted to change your clocks. Maybe you could phase it in over a month or so. I would take fifteen minutes each week for the next month.

So how about the contest.

In last week’s contest the winner was Royal Wedding, the white Oriental poppy. The details are as follows:
Oriental poppy Royal wedding 22+3=25 for 39.7%
Purple Anemone 13+2=15 for 23.8%
Red Thing 8+1=9 for 14.3%
Pulmonaria 11+3=14 and 22.2%
Total 54+9=63

So here are the four finalists for the flower of the year:

First, fresh off its impressive win this past week, is the Oriental poppy called Royal Wedding. Can you pull the lever two times in a row for this impressive flower?

Second there is the great red and yellow tulip, Monsella. Tulips will be here soon.

The third picture is the pink orchid cactus. It was certainly the plant of the year when it was in full flower, with over 30 buds at one time.

Finally there is the purple Siberian iris, Jeweled Crown.

It is a great field. Pick one if you can.

For your extra pictures this week here are a few pictures from the garden this afternoon, after the rain let up. The yellow one is the first of the winter aconite.