Cyclamen and Kalanchoe
My favorite flowers include peony, gardenia, cyclamen, magnolia, plumeria. Cyclamen are probably the most accessible. I see them pretty much year round at the local nurseries, providing gorgeous colors and the lightest fragrance. They are hardier perennials than they look. When a bloom dies, I gently tug on the petal and stem to pull it out.
By mid February, the kalanchoe are in various stages of bloom. I find them one of the easiest plants (succulents) to maintain. They are in baskets and pots throughout the yard, even though the ten or so that I have came from just two plants that I got from Trader Joe’s. By easy, I mean when a stem breaks off — blaming this on our trampling cats — I just remove the lower leaves and stick it into a pot of another plant where it continues to grow and eventually get big enough to need its own container.
