Garden Blogger's Bloom Day - January 2016

It's the first Bloom Day of 2016, hosted by Carol of May Dreams Gardens. I seem to have a lot of things in bud this month, but very little blooming, so this will be a relatively short bloom day post for me. I'll start off with the houseplants.

Vanda (formerly Ascofinetia) Moonlight Firefly is winding down after a fairly brief showing this time round. Sometimes the flower spikes on these plants can be finicky and decide to produce little or no bloom if you change the conditions at the wrong time. It still has two more spikes low down in the leaves that should produce more blooms at some point.

Sorry for the poor lighting. This was taken under my grow lights, but it does show how fuzzy the bud is on Columnea 'Janella'. The flower will nearly double in size when open.

Four of my mottled-leaf Phalaenopsis are in spike right now. I grow them mainly for the foliage, but I can't wait to see the blooms, especially since this is the first time these young plants will bloom for me.

Echeveria purpusorum surprised me with a bloom spike.

There are a couple other plants in bud, another moth orchid and Hoya multiflora, and a couple bromeliads that still have colorful bracts, though the flowers themselves are gone. Rounding out the houseplants this time is Paphiopedilum Hsinying Alien.

Out in the greenhouse, Lapageria rosea continues to bloom. I haven't spotted any more buds, so these may finally be the last blooms for a while.

Daphne x transatlantica 'Blafra' (Eternal Fragrance) didn't have any blooms open today, but there are plenty of buds that could open at any time.

The hellebores are still a ways off. I need to get some of the Helleborus niger hybrids that are blooming now in other gardens.

Erysimum buds continue to swell ever so slowly.

Cyclamen coum was slowed down by the cold and snow the first week of January, as no doubt most things were.

While the rain, frost, and slugs have taken a toll on my few other Primula vulgaris hybrids, this one is looking great sheltered under the dead foliage of Japanese forest grass.

Nothing new here. Hutchinsia alpina continues to eek out a few flowers even in the coldest weather.

The seed capsules of some of my Calluna vulgaris have brightened to such a silvery white as to be just as showy as the flowers were at the end of summer.

And finally, the biggest show of flowers in my garden this month is made by the heaths (Erica cultivars). I have mostly white-flowered cultivars, as shown below, but I do have several plants with pink flowers that I keep for their chartreuse foliage that takes on coral and orange shades in winter.