The first of December means the UNH Poinsettia Open House. Two greenhouses full of beautiful poinsettias with all proceeds going to benefit the Thompson School Greenhouse Facility and Horticulture Program.
My gardening pulse quickened just breathing in the warm air and the smell of soil. Then add two greenhouses of poinsettias, and I was a happy woman. I almost grabbed a chair to sit down when I realized there was a greenhouse full of fresh vegetables – tables of lettuce, ripe, red tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers. The vegetables are being grown by the UNH students in partnership with a local school.
Are poinsettias part of your holiday decor? Have a favorite color?
I was there when they opened, and the greenhouses were already crowded with shoppers including a couple of other Master Gardeners I know. When it was time to pay, the line extended all the way through the greenhouse.
What caught my eye? They had these little ones with only one bloom. There were only about 20 of them, so I picked up three. They fit in a sugar or creamer and look extremely cute.
I put two on my kitchen window sill and one on my table. I’ve never seen single bloom ones before, but I sure hope they have them again next year.
A cherry tomato plant dripping with red tomatoes found its way into my bag as well. I don’t know how that happened. 🍅
I’m also happy to be writing a post today because last week I was without a computer for four days. Count them – Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. 🙂
The local computer store that was replacing my battery was able to remove it with solvent the first day, but when they installed the new battery the computer didn’t recognize it. It seems that Apple not only doesn’t want you to replace the battery, but when you purchase a new battery, there is a small but critical piece missing. So, a part had to be purchased from CA, overnighted, and now it is humming like a new machine.
I was talking to the owners about the times in the past when I’ve spent about 15 minutes in a store while a battery was replaced – open the back, take one out, put one in. They said after Tim Cook took over from Steve Jobs the parts are now all attached together and glued down so when a machine needs repair, they assume you will just replace it with a new one. It certainly is food for thought when you are looking at a laptop in the $1,200+ price range.
So, here we are in the first full week of December. I’ve got two lunches with friends, computer work to do for the Master Gardeners, and some sewing. What’s on your calendar?
NewEnglandGardenAndThread 
So beautiful! We had the Candy Cane ones ,the pink ones at our wedding, so they are special to me. 🙂
I love the month of December! Lunches with friends are on my agenda too!
We celebrate all month long!
My bday is tomorrow and then our Anniversary is the 16th and.then Christmas! 🙂
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Well, may I wish you a very happy birthday and a wonderful anniversary celebration. 🙂
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Thank you very much for the early wishes! 🙂 Sweet wishes from friends makes older not.that bad! 🙂
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I always default to the red ones! And I hear you about the cherry tomato. Happens to me all the time. (smile)
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Those red ones do call out to you, don’t they. 🙂
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They do, Judy!
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I always get the red ones. I love the single blooms you found! I wonder if there are any to be found in the stores around here. My agenda this week is finish getting gifts, make some Christmas cookies, and go to a couple of Christmas parties.
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Sounds like a fun week ahead. If I lived closer, I’d volunteer to be a cookie taster because every baker needs at least one. 🙂
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I always love the red poinsettias!
This little ones you brought home are just darling! Hoping I see those out my way in AZ.
December is a busy month for all. I will be flying home to AZ soon and will start the Christmas Cheer in my house. Along with ALL the festivities.
Merry Christmas! Glad you computer is working!
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Safe travels and happy decorating. 🙂
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Beautiful flowers to cheer up the dark of winter. For a variety of reasons, I don’t have winter flowers in the house, but I sure love them. Clif, my favorite computer geek, has talked about what Apple has done to induce people to buy a new computer rather than replace a battery. In short, disgusting in so many ways. Anyway, glad your computer is back. Busy weeks ahead…cards to do, friends over for dessert on Sunday afternoon, a party to go to, gifts to wrap. Ah, Christmas!
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Yes, fun week for you ahead. 🙂 It is disgusting because in the past you felt like you had a choice – fix it or replace it with newer technology. Now, you have to acknowledge that is built to be disposed of as soon as something goes haywire. I don’t like it, but I readily admit they aren’t marketing to my age group. 🙂
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I love the red ones and bought them faithfully from my daughters’ friends’ band fundraisers when they were in high school. Have not purchased them since because I have never received a straight answer on whether or not they are poisonous to cats (like lilies are). My silk ones do very nicely, though!
I can imagine your quickened pulse when you entered the greenhouse! Much like entering a quilting emporium! The mini plants are so sweet. One year, I used them as place markers for the ladies at my formal Christmas dinner. They loved taking them home!
Not that the flurry of Thanksgiving is over and I’m (almost!) dug out, it’s time to plan my Christmas cookie baking party. Lots to do, but a little time for hand quilting in between!
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I know poinsettias are not a favorite of homes with animals because of concerns. When you get a spare moment, you should consider putting together a book on how to set a table because you certainly know how to do it with a lot of finesse. Applause to your skills. 🙂
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That photo on your header is stunning! The cats are still shaking their heads and blinking. 🙂
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I also love the red poinsettias best. Cherry tomatoes are skilled hitchhikers–you had nothing to do with it. Thanks for the info on your computer. I love my laptop but it’s already exceeded its life expectancy. I’ve been thinking of moving out of Windows and joining George in Apple-land when it dies. But the screw-the-user-maximize-profit mentality makes me want to avoid Apple altogether. Definitely food for thought.
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🙂 I’ve used a Mac since the early 80’s. We’ve bought them for our daughter then our granddaughter. But, this business of gluing everything down so it can’t easily be repaired is a real turnoff. I’m going to be hard pressed when I have to make the next computer purchase decision.
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The poinsettias are really pretty. We don’t decorate with live plants, since we have critters that seem to eat anything that grows. MiMi would be all: “Oh boy they brought that inside for me!”
I miss the days when computers were serviceable by the mere mortals who paid for them. The trend toward disposable laptops is disturbing. I’m glad you were able to get yours working again.
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The one on my kitchen table this year is gold! A gift from my mother in law!
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The poinsettias are all beautiful, but I’m partial to the stunning pink one and the soft peach colored one. The little guys you brought home look so dainty.
I have a vision of you popping those cherry tomatoes in your mouth like M&M’s!! Lol.
Glad the computer is alive and well. Nothing is made to last any more. It’s a disposable world now. Except for things like disposable lighters and disposable diapers that sit in landfills for decades “as is”!!
I still have to decorate. My get up and go got up and went. I’m waiting for it to return!! 😂😂
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I know exactly how to get in the mood – something cold with a little kick and a nice assortment of chocolate. 🙂
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I love poinsettia as well Judy, my favorite is creamy one. This summer the last Christmas poinsettia has grown well in the garden so I think it will be in bloom at the end of December. What is in my plans? To finish my new cross-stitching and do some new sewing.
Happy new week!
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Those light ones are beautiful. I really like to do cross stitch projects, but then I don’t know what to do with them. I have a very small family and no one to gift them to. 🙂
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I would have loved to see that poinsettia display – it must have been splendid! How irritating about your Mac – I have one and am not pleased to hear that it isn’t easy to repair. You’d think given the cost, they’d have a bit of consideration since they got you at the outset. Corporate greed or what?
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I love poinsettia but they are banned from our house; too toxic to doggies. I’ll reserve my comments about Apple’s sales tactics. This is a G-rated site. 🙂
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When I met Paul Ecke (of the Ecke family that popularized poinsettias) in Sacramento back in 1990, there were only a few cultivars of poinsettias. Although there were a few reds, only two or three were grown each year. There were also white and pink and marbled varieties. Pale orange and speckled red had just been introduced. I do not remember their names.
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Glad your computer is back in good stead. I like the white poinsettia. It must have been fun to see all of the plants in the greenhouse. There’s a grower I’ve enjoyed visiting in past years, perhaps I’ll make this year.
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Your poinsettias photos are lovely…I am drawn to the red ones at Xmas, my parents had them growing in the garden. I’m interested in your comments about the Mac, I think our PC and Window programs have really improved in recent years, and I tend to use my Mac as a fall back position now, Macs will have a lot more competition in the future.
Enjoy your Christmas celebrations….we are just waiting for summer to arrive, it is unseasonably cold here at the moment. (weather….go figure…)
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Cherry tomatoes in December… I thought that only happened in California! I don’t normally buy poinsettias but I remember one that my father purchased, then planted after the holiday. It grew into a rather large bush/tree and bloomed almost continuously year-round. I love your single bloom one… so cute.
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They are selling these at the supermarket, but this year is the first time I didn’t buy any. I love them. I always buy a few of them, but last year, they all died in 24 hours after getting them home. I think they spray them with something and as soon as it wears off, the poinsettias die.
When i lived in NY, the Arboretum in Westbury used to have open houses around this time every year. One year, they were selling orchids for $1/pot. I had zero experience with orchids, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to be good with them … and I wasn’t. It turned out the ones I bought all needed to be kept quite cold … like maybe an enclosed but unheated porch kind of cold … and i didn’t have anywhere like that.
If I win the lottery (right, like I’m going to win the lottery!) I WANT A GREENHOUSE. A big one with different sections for warmer and cooler, with shades and built-in lights. I’ve wanted a green house — even a greenhouse WINDOW — my whole adult life. It’s one of the very few things on my list that I’ve never gotten to. I think I could grow anything if I had the right place to do it!
Gee. I haven’t confessed my longing for a greenhouse to anyone in more than 40 years.
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Okay, let’s make a deal. Whoever wins the lottery first will send enough money to the other person to buy that greenhouse because that is certainly near the top of my bucket list as well. To not have to worry about the cost, but be able to walk out into a warm, sunny greenhouse and tend plants all winter would be a therapy that you couldn’t put a price on. Now, if one of us could just win the lottery. I buy a ticket now and again and 99.9% of the time don’t even have one number. It’s not looking good from my end for those two greenhouse purchases. 🙂
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Now that sounds like fun….the visiting a greenhouse. Not the waiting in line. I heard someone say they did not like Apple policies…wondering if stuff like this with the battery is what they meant.
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Yes, I think those of us who have been Apple users for many years find it quite disheartening that the machines are now manufactured to be unfixable. In the past, you had a choice to fix or replace, but with everything glued together and down it is hard to find someone willing to take it on.
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The flowers are fabulous! But I think they’re poisonous for pets and we have . . . um . . . well, “multiple” cats. It’s the same reason I don’t have lit candles around the house!
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No cats here, and I haven’t lit a candle in so many years I can’t remember when. I can’t believe how many house fires are still started with candles. I have those little battery operated things and that’s fine with me.
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I am always torn between the red and the white poinsettias, though there are times I look longingly at the pink. I end up buying none! I might this year, though, because I don’t see a tree going up in this mess, so a poinsettia might be just the thing to keep Christmas. I think a whole greenhouse filled with those flowers would be heavenly indeed — then add in some vegetable plants? Yes, smelling salts at the ready! (And isn’t it magical how that cherry tomato plunked itself into your bag?) I cannot comment on computers; I don’t like them and they don’t like me: I’m not objective. I am sure I would love little poinsettias in sugar bowls, though!
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What a beautiful sight that must have been, with all the glorious Christmas colour. Here’s it’s not poinsettia season but they are available anyway. They must be grown specially. Mr ET planted several tomato plants this spring and so far they are all looking very healthy.
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Just hearing you say he planted tomato plants made me smile. I hope they continue to do well, and your harvest fills your kitchen countertops. 🙂
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So do I, because I have a very tasty tomato sauce recipe and I’m hoping to make some this year.
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Calendar full.
No time.
Love the poinsettias. Saw some tinted blue ones online last week — haven’t seen any in shops. Want.
Hate planned obsolescence and greed.
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My favourite is the traditional deep red poinsettia – so rich and beautiful!
I cringed when you talked about your battery issue with Mac. I’m new to the Apple world and your experience does not fill me with confidence. I’ll keep my fingers crossed that both of our machines hum along problem-free for a long time.
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On the bright side, my laptop battery went four years with no problem. 🙂
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Isn’t it kind of sad when we consider a 4-year lifespan from our computer as ‘good’?
The problem is that 4 years goes by in a blink.
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So part of Christmas. The shops over here seem to all have poinsettia displays from supermarkets to the garden centres. As for the playing up computer I’m pleased you managed to get it fixed it is so annoying that this throw away society manufactures things so we cannot fix them.
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All so pretty ; I remember when you went there last year too! 🙂 I like the pale peachy/ pink ones the best.
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I really love looking at the big variety displayed of your annual UNH poinsettia show, Judy.
My brothers and I bought Mom a really pretty artificial pine wreath with red bulbs and poinsettias. She was thrilled! Her usual favorite of poinsettias is pink.
I bet this just puts you in the merriest of moods. . . 🙂
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What a nice gift for your Mom. Each year she uses it, she’ll have fond memories of her loved ones who bought it for her. Sounds lovely. 🙂
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Thank you, Judy. It is always precious to have a chance to see her. I got a “selfie” with her and me in front of her memory care apartment door with the red bulbs and poinsettias wreath. She made me laugh as she asked me to put red lipstick on her! 😊
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Oops, it published twice. 🙂 🤗
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Very interesting about the battery Judy. I replaced mine in my old Mac without a problem. Hope my new Mac doesn’t hold a nasty surprise on that front. UGH. As for poinsettias, I have 2 gorgeous red ones my husband brought home for me. Beautiful as they are I know they will not survive because I am the worst gardener ever born. But I’m doing my best. any suggestions greatly appreciated!
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I too have replaced batteries before. This was an entirely new, unwanted experience. 😦 I always buy poinsettias because I truly think they are beautiful. And, I have gardening friends who keep them alive and thriving from one year to the next. But, with great gardening shame and my hanging, I admit that I enjoy them until after the season and then bid them adieu. 🙂
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