Starting Spring Early

In honor of the beautiful weather outside (it's 70 today!), I thought I'd share one of my attempts to make our house a little greener and bring spring a little earlier.  A couple of weeks ago I bought a package of ranunculus bulbs from Home Depot.  It was an impulse buy at the checkout but I couldn't resist - they are some of my favorite flowers (yes I have a lot of favorite flowers).  I thought the package said 4 bulbs for $4 - not exactly a good deal, but less pricey than many of the other summer bulbs for sale.  And I wanted to start a few bulbs early indoors just for fun (because yes that's my idea of fun, okay?).

Then last weekend when I went to plant them, I discovered the package actually said 15 for $4!  And of course because I love them and I was feeling compulsive (wait until it's warmer and put half in the ground ?! Heck no!), I decided to plant them all in several ceramic pots.  There's probably a little overcrowding, but they aren't big plants and they usually die back after blooming anyways.  Now they are crowding the slider in the dining room where it's warm and sunny... after a week little green stems are already poking out!

(and in case anyone was wondering, the plant on the top right in the red pot is an amaryllis, not a ranunculus)