There was a glorious blue day, filled with columns of flowering trees.

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February in Portland. Often really rainy, though dryer than January. Everything is on the edge of exploding in March.

A few bulbs are starting to come up. (I think these are my fritillaries! But maybe I’m delusional! My veins are all crossed in excitement!)

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January’s bloom day is pretty grey in my backyard. I was over at a friend’s house recently, and her daphne is starting to flower. It was such a pretty, bright spot of color in the middle of the winter, and it makes me want to plant a daphne for myself. For now, though, my Belated Bloom Day post consists of green things.

My bulbs are coming up! This is the first time I’ve ever planted bulbs, which makes it doubly exciting to see them growing.

The profusion of moss in my front yard tells me that I have drainage and soil quality problems. But it’s so pretty — it’s nice to have a bright spot of green.

Otherwise, there’s not much going on in my garden in January. Oh well — back to the seed catalogs.

Portland just emerged from a long (for Portland) period of freezing temperatures, which pretty much froze any flowers that were still out. The frozen droopy flowers are interesting their own right, though. Here’s a marigold.

Dead seedheads, covered in frost, are delicate and lovely enough to be considered on Bloom Day, I think.

And one can’t forget frost “flowers”. They are rare and fleeting in Portland – enjoy them while you can!

I’m a relative newcomer to the world of garden blogging, and I sometimes come across blog topics that are a whole new world of gardening that I never thought of. The concept of “bloom day” was just such a topic. “What’s this ‘bloom day’?” I thought to myself. “It looks like pictures of people’s flowers. Surely it can’t be that simple? There must be some larger purpose.”

After much curious browsing of the internet, I think I’ve discovered three things.
1) There is no larger purpose that I can see – and really, it doesn’t matter.
2) Flowers are pretty.
3) Bloom Day appears to occur between the 14th and the 16th of every month. Ideally the 15th, but you know — some people get excited, and some people get late.

So, in honor of Bloom Day, finding useful information on the internet, and the release of our new book on black plants, I am posting some images of black flowers. I believe that technically, these flowers should be growing in my own garden, so I’ve picked ones that I would like to have in my garden, given half a chance. I am also posting a day late – but I’m hoping that no-one will refuse to look at flowers just because they are posted on the 16th instead of the 15th.

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