Another anemone de caen

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I have always loved the vivid colors and dark centers of anemone de caen flowers. Last spring I decided to try growing some in pots, and planted twenty-five corms in two pots. Disappointingly, only one plant developed and on careful poking around, no other corms were evident. During the time between planting and new growth I had noticed that the soil in the pots was often disturbed. Initially I thought the cats were digging around in them then realized the missing corms were probably eaten by the racoons that live in one of the trees in the back yard. The first couple of flowers appeared just before I left for France for the summer. I wasn’t too hopeful that the solitary plant would survive my absence, so I was delighted when I returned home in late September to find that although the pot had been buried under construction materials, it was still valiantly trying to bloom. After repositioning the pot so it would get full sun, and giving the poor plant a much needed drink, I was rewarded with renewed efforts by the plant to produce blooms. Anemones don’t always survive our winters here, so I was waiting for it to stop blooming so I could store the corm over the winter. But when the late November cold snap hit us, the anemone plant had just opened a new flower and another bud was close to opening. Although the soil froze, amazingly the flowers weren’t killed. Even so, I felt the plant would now die back, so I cut the blossoms and brought them inside. We had 10 days of freezing weather before warming up to above freezing and that anemone plant is still trying to put out leaves. The pot is now somewhat sheltered and I will probably leave the corm in it after all and will cover it up if we get some really cold temps as well as protect it somehow from the raccoons next spring. Before I cut the last flowers I grabbed a shot of of one of them, and feel such perserverence deserves some recognition, so here’s the image after I processed it on my iPad and ran it through TangledFX.