Garden Bloggers Bloom Day March 2013 - Spring Rewound

Welcome to Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, a meme brought to us on the 15th of each month by May Dream Gardens, a garden blog from Indiana.  On the 15th of each month, garden bloggers gather from all over the world to show what is blooming in their gardens, or (for those of us in cold climes), indoors.

Because I just returned from a two week vacation, I am going to bend the rules a little.  Well, a lot.  There is nothing blooming outside in my yard right now, but I just vacationed in three places where plenty of flowers were blooming.

Spouse and I traveled by car from our home in upstate NY to northern Virginia, then by Auto Train to central Florida, then by car to Sanibel Island, FL, then to the Tampa Bay area of Florida, then Savannah, Georgia, then home.  (if you are not familiar with the geography of the United States, a map might be helpful at this point.)

Florida has a hot, humid climate in the summer, but can be quite pleasant in the winter.  Many (not all) parts of Florida rarely get frosts.  Sanibel Island is a zone 10b, a winter pleasure to this zone 5a (Binghamton, NY area) gardener. In Savannah, a zone 8b clime, you can find palmettos, but also a lot of favorite flowers: azaleas, dogwoods: but with a Southern twist.

So, this is what our vacation looked like, as told by flowers as spring and summer rewound into winter:

Beach sunflowers in Sanibel, FL;

Bougainvilleas in St. Augustine, FL;

Azalea and redbud in front of Temple Mickve Israel in Savannah;

Daffodils blooming in front of the North Carolina welcome center (Southern border) on I-77 in North Carolina.

And my yard in upstate NY?  Taken this afternoon, all that is blooming is snow and sleet.

But come indoors.  Here is my "miracle" reblooming orchid, now up to five flowers!

My Christmas cactus flowers came and went while I was gone - the dried up remnants are on the plant. But my kalanchoe - just starting to bloom last month; now look at it! (this was a gift to a seriously ill neighbor, who gave it to me a couple of years ago - and it is thriving, at least until the whiteflies get to it).

And last but not least, the impatiens I made cuttings of in the fall have bloomed a couple of times, and are now loaded with buds.  These are precious plants since a terrible downy mildew is going around and striking commercial starters down - I have to think carefully about if I want to plant them outdoors come May.  Unfortunately they don't seem to do well indoors once spring comes - I'll have to see if these need to be moved outdoors.

Next month - hopefully we'll have spring here, too.

What's blooming in your garden/house?