The waterfall on the big pond was finally shut down late at night mid February when a sudden drop in temperature nearly turned the waterfall into a frozen falls. Considering that Niagara Falls on the border of Canada and the US has nearly completely frozen over, I am surprised my waterfall continued flowing as long as it did. Nevertheless, the small pump in my small pond out front is still going strong although there is a significant amount of ice surrounding it. Actually, the only opening in the ice is where the pump spits out the water! There are no fish in this pond, but it is home to a few frogs so I need to keep a hole in the ice open. So far, so good!

Meanwhile February marks the month when my slipper orchids come into bloom. Long before the moth orchid (Phalaenopsis) starts blooming, these slipper orchids unfurl a flower, or two. This year I got lucky; one plant has three flowers, while another has two double flowers. A third has only one flower, but it is gigantic.  And then there is the one slipper orchid which refused to bloom in year two and now year three. It gets the same treatment as the others; it increases in size, but flowers? No. I may have to read up on this particular type of slipper orchid to see how I can get it to rebloom again.

I started watering the agaves a bit more than once a month and suddenly they are growing a new leaf or two. Meanwhile little offsets from older agaves (which are called “pups”) and which were potted up in late fall are growing as well. Soon I will be inundated with small agaves and already I see many more pups coming up around the mother plants. I hope these plants will find new owners at our annual plant swap in May but not everyone is enamored by these spiky plants which have the potential to do some serious damage to unsuspecting passer-bys. 

The first flower show has been attended. The second one (Philadelphia flower show) is right around the corner and a week after that I will be off to the Sussex flower show. By then it will be nearly spring, although it certainly doesn’t feel like it yet. Oh well, all the snow will melt one of these days and there will be greenery in our future.