I really look forward to the week after Christmas. That is the time when the florists order in spring bulbs and potted plants. My local grocery store without fail each year on December 26th is stocked with English Primroses in little colored pots. I anticipate their arrival and am overjoyed when I find them that day. This to me means Spring even though we have January and February to get through. Sometimes our florists will stock red Tulips the week of Christmas but the supply is pretty limited.
Meet the Onion Girl. The rest of the year she sits on the kitchen countertop and holds onions. But come the last week of December, she gets to hold the Primroses. This bowl is a vegetable bowl from a china set that I found at an estate sale in Memphis, TN at the Anniedale mansion. I don't know where the rest of the set went to. I had an idea of what I could use her for the moment I saw her and she came home with me.
So here she is holding the Primroses.
I usually purchase the pink and purple ones and place them around the house. Sometimes I also use soup tureens to hold a grouping of them.
I love having baskets full of spring color around the house.
This antique hand-painted English soup tureen has a retailer's mark from San Francisco at the turn of the century. I found this with six soup bowls at an estate sale in Alameda, CA in 1993.
A white Primrose on my mantle with coral.
Cyclamen in brilliant hues are available now also.
Have you seen more adorable faces?
Here a Primrose grouping is used with magenta china and linens.
This Primrose is in an antique silverplate loving cup from Scotland.
This white Primrose is in an Anna Weatherley cachepot.
Primroses and Hyacinths in mercury glass.
Pretty Parrot Tulips in an antique hand-painted porcelain vase.
More mercury glass.
Hyacinths and mercury glass with coral.
This garden statute is Lucy named after my Great Grandmother. She has never spent a day outside in the garden. You will recognize her in my blog banner on the right side.
I hope you have some pretty spring bulbs and plants to chase your winter days.
Summer
Photos: Swede