While we seem to be having an “early” Spring in Chicago with bulbs popping up & trees starting to bud… I have some fun Spring hyacinths already blooming in my kitchen. Such a wonderful scent from these bulbs that I “forced” about a month ago on my kitchen windowsill.

While Spring might “officially” be two weeks away… I’m calling it Spring already here in Chicago. Especially with the warm near-70 temps yesterday & the forsythia bushes are already starting to bloom!!!

With a crazy warm forecast today… a bunch of snowdrop flowers!
Thankfully with no snow!

Another bright & sunny day… made even brighter with another orchid re-blooming today!

Turned out to be a nice sunny day today, albeit a bit breezy. But I did see a ray of hope… a flowering witch hazel tree! Some say it’s Late Winter… I’m gonna call it Very Early SPRING!!!

This morning is all gray & cloudy… but then again, this bright spot decided to bloom overnight for a pop of color in my dining room! It’s the first of several orchid spikes coming up for this year’s re-bloom… just making me want Spring to come even sooner!

While cleaning up the “remains” from my Holiday Home Shows… I’m finally taking down shelves… and I’m finding that my neglected orchids have apparently been doing just fine without me! With my dining room window covered with shelves, my plants unfortunately get “wedged” in between the shelves & window and get very little attention for quite awhile! So imagine my surprise today when I found several of my orchid plants sending up new flower spikes already!!! So I’ve watered, cleaned, propped ’em up… and I’m now looking forward to some fresh new orchid blooms coming soon!!!

My Thanksgiving Cactus was pretty much right on schedule… maybe a week late! But it’s doing great now. I’m sure it is all about the handmade pottery flowerpot that it’s living in! Well, at least that’s my story.. and I’m sticking to it…

A few more flowers popping up on the back porch…
a hanging basket of mini-petunias that survived the Halloween snowstorm!

Down the street there’s a beautiful hydrangea bush with these big, beautiful flower clusters. Luckily, I cut off a couple stems before the big Halloween snowfall… and now they’ve dried perfectly & maintained their green color. A perfect addition to my green stamped & soda-fired vase!