A little winter surprise

Sometime last summer I bought a reblooming red azalea.  I had had my eye on them for a while; I'd noticed some in people's yards while walking my dog and thought they were really pretty.

My "normal" pink azalea (just blooms in the spring) is one of the small joys in my life.  My neighbors have always commented on how much they love it; when it's in bloom you almost don't see green leaves at all.  Just flowers.

Anyway, I found a reblooming red one at Lowe's on the discount rack last summer.  I think it was $6.

I have the perfect spot for it at the home/house - a shady area under a tree where I'd love to have something colorful.

I've been so busy working on The House of Goodwill that I wasn't home in the fall to plant it.  Well, I was home to plant it, but I didn't want to since I wasn't staying long enough to water it daily to help it get established.

So it remained in a pot and I brought it indoors this winter in order to keep it from freezing.  I put it in my husband's office in front of a window.

Around the middle of January, I came back to The House of Goodwill to paint for a week.  When I returned home, I went to water it and noticed it was covered in flower buds.  In the middle of January!

A few days later it was COVERED in flowers.  Beautiful, red flowers.

I'm pretty sure this was supposed to happen in October.  I guess living indoors confused it.

And I never thought of a reblooming azalea as a potential house plant, but it was pretty great!  To have a beautiful small shrub blossoming in the middle of winter brought a welcome reminder of hope and spring energy.

I had bought this BEAUTIFUL antique planter last year at an antique store.  It was not a discount, but I thought the price ($26) was totally worth it.  I haven't seen anything quite like it before.  It was a beautiful transferware-ish, Victorian (?) green planter.

When I inquired about it, I was told it came into the shop the day before from a dealer who'd just received a shipment of antiques from Europe.  That's all I know.

But I got to use it for the first time - I had to bring the azalea downstairs where I could enjoy it, and it was the perfect planter for it.

By the time I thought to take a photo, about half the flowers had finished and fallen.

I couldn't believe how many flowers it made in January!

I always love this pale green color.  It reminds me of spring!

The other side has a different picture.

I don't know which I like more!

While I don't know anything of the origins of this planter, and I wouldn't qualify it as a discount buy, surely it must be worth more than what I paid for it?!

I think it's absolutely beautiful, and considering that regular, plain, mass-produced ceramic planters at Home Depot cost about the same amount, I think this was one of my favorite finds!  (I have a few of those. 🙂)

Being surrounded by lovely things just makes life a little lovelier, don't you think?