08 February 2014

Paper-Yellows

Surprise the customers. I bought paperwhite narcissus at a local nursery last year after searching throughout town for the least expensive. I was buying for the master gardeners. I am VP of Training, and it was graduation time, when the rookie newbies were graduating from the training program to CERTIFIED master gardener status.

It was a custom to hand out a small goodie bag to the graduates as they walked across the stage (front of the room) to receive their diplomas (certificates) and shake hands. I put together the best goodie bag ever with the extremely limited funds available. Included among some symbolic and useless items was one paperwhite bulb. My best price was $0.99 each.

After class, I went back and bought six more bulbs for myself and planted them in time for a Christmas bloom. Four responded on schedule. A few more lallygagged well into January.

And, then yellow. The late bloomers were yellow (obviously a different variety with different bloom characteristics). I wonder if any master gardeners got yellow, after their training coordinator labeled them as paperWHITES.

Speaking of color, one sunrise greeted me with some after a January snowfall.

Red sky at morning,
sailors take warning.
Red sky at night,
sailor's delight.


We got another snowfall after this morning sky.

4 comments:

  1. That's pretty funny. I had a similar experience with what were advertised as "not fragrant" paperwhite bulbs. Just whined/blogged about it. They're still pretty, though.

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  2. After googling 'yellow paperwhites' I learned that Paperwhites actually come in 3 colors! White, Yellow, and Orange. They can also have tinges of Green. I learned something new. So, I guess they are 'paperwhites' afterall ;) Here's one of the links I landed on: http://www.theplantexpert.com/springbulbs/Daffodil14Paperwhites.html

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  3. Jan,
    I think I will search out the different colors next year -- instead of letting them find me by accident. Thanks for researching and informing us.

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  4. Beautiful spring blooms! We have just started to have a few spring blooms too much like yours, see my post!

    Michael :-)
    http://michaelswoodcraft.wordpress.com/2014/03/15/spring-color/

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