10 ways to combat SPRING FEVER
Here at Petals we LIVE for Spring. So much so that spring fever starts for us about January 1st. By actual Spring, we are down right bonkers. It doesn't help that here in Boulder, Colorado (zone 5b or 6 depending on who you ask) March is our snowiest month. As a result, we have to get creative in how we manage our mental health and access to spring feels until mid-May when it actually starts to feel like spring day-in and day-out.
We've taken our extensive experience with Spring Fever and compiled our top 10 ways to combat it. We hope some or all of our suggestions help you too survive the ever daunting days of later winter/early spring when it feels like warm weather and blooming flowers might NEVER actually arrive. They will, just never soon enough.
Visit a greenhouse: This can be at a botanic gardens, a garden center, a flower farm, your own backyard greenhouse, it doesn't matter. What does matter is that its heated, filled with green things, and has high humidity. In our area I make frequent visits to the tropical greenhouse at the Denver Botanic Gardens as well as the Butterfly Pavilion -- both are like being transported into Costa Rica.
Read a garden book, or blog, or magazine: I have a...healthy collection of garden books that I drag out every January and work my way through year after year as I dream about Spring. I highly recommend anything by Monty Don. Otherwise my current favorite is Small Garden Style. My most wonderful garden friends and I all swap our books and our library finds to keep each other stocked with garden inspiration when its simply too damn cold to go outside.
Buy Yourself Flowers: I suggest an arrangement for your kitchen table and a petite one for your nightstand. This way you can wake up and go to bed with flowers as well as enjoy them every time you have a meal. Bet you know who to call for help with this one...(hint: me, call me.)
Plan and start seeds indoors: I start my seeds in waves with the first trays potted up on February 15th (hey, the day before is kind of a busy one for florists, okay?). Crucial for seed starting success? A heat mat, humidity dome, and grow light. You don't need lots of equipment (but its cool if you can justify it...why do you think I started this business?) but a $15 heat mat, a $50 grow light, and a $18 seed starting tray with humidity dome are the perfect gateways to total garden domination. I DO NOT get any kickback from these links BTW but they are the supplies I started out with. The whole set up used to cost quite a bit less but for less than $100 you can still get your hands dirty and start a compact indoor growing operation that will result in at least 24 plants...thats about $4 a plant - not bad.
Buy a new house plant: or twelve...As a houseplant addict I will fully support you in buying ALL the houseplants. But even one little succulent can be enough to tide you over, but seriously, twelve would be way cooler. Looking for something really cool? Hit me up, I have ALL the plants and if I don't have what you are looking for, I will find it, and buy one for myself.
Watch a garden show: I seriously wish I could tell you about the most amazing gardening show available to everyone, everywhere but...there really aren't enough good options. Gardener's World staring Monty Don (or any of his garden documentaries are absolutely the best, but being British they can be hard to stream).
Burn a garden scented candle: Okay, okay, its hard to come up with ten ways to combat spring fever but desperate times call for desperate measures and well...sometimes a peony or fresh grass scented candle is the best anyone can do. We do offer candles by Petals that are dreamy but..so do lots of places.
Fly to Costa Rica, or Mexico, or wherever you can get to that is warmer than where you are: Private jet in the shop? Put a few houseplants in your shower and steam it up...seriously. One February I dragged by husband to Trader Joe's and we bought as many orchids as I could justify, filled our tiny apartment bathroom with them and then steamed it up until I could pretend I was in the tropics somewhere...whatever it takes.
Read the Secret Garden: I seriously re-read this book every February/March. The author captures the feeling of malaise turned to joy as long winter days bloom into spring and anything becomes possible. There are a handful of movies out there too but I don't endorse any of them. The book is just so good, and I only discovered it as an adult.
Book a Botanical Workshop: We host workshops on every topic related to plants and flowers that you can dream of...and you can book online! Gather a friend or a bevy of them and come hang out in our flower filled design studio and play with plants. Terrarium building is my personal favorite this time of year. Can't make it to Boulder, Colorado because you spent all of your money on #8? That's okay, almost any glass container big enough for plants and a few rocks can be made into a DIY terrarium. I'll put a blog post up on how to make your own soon.
Whew, we got to 10, around #6 I started to get worried but then I remembered more of the ways I fight off spring fever. Now, I'm sure there are way more enlightened than me,"live-in-the-moment" people who will tell you to embrace the cold with gratitude and go skiing or jump in a freezing body of water. I will not. I will tell you straight up that the best way to get through the winter is denial...and lots and lots of plants and flowers.