I had planned to write about Daphne du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn today but since I am already late to the group discussion on it, one more day won’t really matter. Besides, it is a holiday for me today and yesterday Bookman and I took steps to escape winter for a little bit. We went out to breakfast and then visited Como Park Conservatory. There were quite a few other people out escaping winter too. I am so glad we have this beautiful place to go to when the spirit needs a lift. How much lift did ours need?
This is the view of my garden at the moment:
This is where we sat and held hands and breathed until the scent of the lilies and paper whites became too much for my allergies:
And with the herb spiral looking like this:
Why would I not want to spend some time looking at this instead?
The red flower dangling over the water is called “flame ginger” and is growing in a room that also houses citrus, banana, a cocoa tree, sugar cane, and other useful plants. There is a thermometer in this room and it read 80F (27C). If it were summer I’d be complaining about it being hot, but in the middle of winter, oh, does it ever feel good.
Before we departed the warmth and the green, we sat for awhile next to a fountain amid palm trees.
It’s no Kew Palm House, I know, I’ve been lucky enough to see that once, but it doesn’t need to be. Bookman and I left feeling warmed through and in a bright sunny mood that lasted all day even after raking a lot of accumulated snow off the roof of the house. The trick will be to hold onto that feeling as the temperature plunges today to land us, once again, below zero (-18C) tonight.
Enchanting. Your snowy cabin looks uncannily like mine.
:O)
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Bettie, thanks!
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I’m intrigued by your snow buried herb wheel. I’d love to have one in our garden but I’m not much of a gardener so wouldn’t know where to begin. Does it take a lot of maintenance?
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BookerTalk, We just built the herb spiral last spring and it was work to build but it was very easy to maintain. Here’s what it looked like in the middle of summer. We planted a mix of perennial herbs and flowers and were quite pleased with ourselves.
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i like the au naturelle look -most herb wheels i’ve seen are sectioned with wood.
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Oh lord–look at all that snow! You DO need your spirits lifted. I know I am fed up with winter and we don’t even have any snow here–just Cold. I’m glad you at least had a brief respite–what a marvelous place to escape into. I wish Omaha had something like that. Now back to reality, eh? And work tomorrow, too. Ugh. I hope you at least have a good new book to start reading now! 🙂
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Danielle, we haven;t had bare ground since the first snow in early December, it just keeps getting deeper and we are in a snow deficit too. I am glad for what we have though because it is protecting the smaller plants in the garden from the frigid temperatures. And yup, it is now back to reality. Sigh. I did start reading a new book, Braiding Sweetgrass, and it is marvelous!
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Oh, I so want to go and sit in that beautiful, colorful place! We are deep into the grey sludgy phase of winter here. I did at least buy a hyacinth for the kitchen windowsill: if I close my eyes and smell it I can almost imagine it’s spring. I want to read what you say about Jamaica Inn! It’s never to late to join the party.
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Rohan, it really is a lovely place. They change the flowers in the sunken garden every few months according to the season. About March they will do the spring display and the room will be filled with tulips and foxglove and all sorts of other flowers. A hyacinth on a windowsill sounds lovely! Jamaica Inn later today 🙂
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Good that you have place to escape winter. What a contrast. I’m afraid I don’t have such a place close by, but then again, I don’t need to escape as urgently as you do, for a change. Our highest temp. this week will be a few degrees above C. (about 40F) 🙂
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Arti, it is good. If it didn’t exist I am not sure what we would do! Glad to hear your winter has been fairly mild! Enjoy the “warmth!”
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The snow in your garden looks lovely too though. At least to someone who almost never gets a chance to see it. Yes, another polar vortex is coming here too (funny, we used to call it winter) and I’ll have to remember to bring in the big pot of anthurium, the parsley and the ivy. I’m wondering if the rosemary will be okay? It’s also in a pot, so I don’t really know. Guess it won’t hurt. It will probably get down to 29 in Savannah but may not reach freezing out on the island. We are usually a couple of degrees warmer in winter and a couple of degrees cooler in the summer.
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Grad, the snow is pretty but I’ve been looking at it since early December and watching it get deeper and deeper, it’s up to my knees now, and I know it will get deeper yet before spring arrives sometime at the end of March or beginning of April, so a change of view is required for a little while. We aren’t even calling the latest cold snap a polar vortex since it isn’t making our temperatures any colder than would be normal for us this time of year. -10? -25 wind chill? We shrug and get on with our day. You might want to bring in your rosemary if you haven’t already, I believe they do not like the cold.
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Last time I asked you said you’d missed the snow so this lot must be very recent. I’m so glad you’ve somewhere warm to visit. It can make all the difference. I was in the palm house of our local botanical gardens on Sunday and it was wonderful – once my glasses had accustomed themselves to the change in temperature and defogged!
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Alex, ah that was in what, November? We had a dry, warm for us November. We’ve been getting snow regularly since early December and because we don’t get warm days it piles up until spring arrives in March/April. It’s more the cold that gets me than the snow. It took us a good half an hour in the conservatory before we finally felt warm! Bookman had the same trouble with his glasses fogging up too! 🙂
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What a gorgeous place to go! I wouldn’t mind a trip there now and our temperatures are only 3-4 degrees celsius, not the awful lows you are experiencing. I send warming hugs!
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Litlove, it is so very nice to have so a beautiful place. They have a Japanese garden too but that is outdoors and covered over in snow right now. The awful lows are actually pretty normal except for the one day two weeks ago, that doesn’t happen often but it happens often enough that we aren’t surprised by it. Thank goodness for central heating! And thanks for the warm hugs 🙂
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How clever you are to choose a place like that. I’d have probably hidden inside but getting out is much better for the soul. Who cares if it’s not Kew, it’s in your city and it’s beautiful.
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whisperinggums, the conservatory has been around for a long time and I imagine whoever built is knew how important it would be for the area. We complain about the weather a lot but when it comes down to it we are pretty stoic about it, refusing to let it defeat us. The annual Winter Carnival starts tomorrow and the US Pond Hockey Championships were just held last weekend at the lake a few blocks from my house. There is no hiding indoors for us! Nonetheless, a beautiful, quiet, warm place to go in the midst of the cold and snow is very good for the soul!
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Yes, I bet it is, it would for warm climate me! My daughter says her Toronto friends hate the cold … They just put up with it. But I know some feel that way about our heat!
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I grump about the cold in winter but the heat and humidity in summer are far worse in my opinion so I’d be one complaining how hot it is should I visit you in summer 🙂
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Fortunately, where I live isn’t humid … More like LA in the summer. I’d grump about humidity too …
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