And with Spring Comes Joy

Hellebore-I'm in love!

Ugh, it's a cold and windy day here. I should be out working in the yard but it's just too miserable. My neighbor's daffodils are already in full bloom but mine aren't quite there yet.

Still, there are a couple of other plants that are putting on a show, like bright blue squill. There are many yards in our town that basically have bright blue lawns due to so much squill. Before we moved here, I had only seen "bulberized" lawns in garden mags. For the short period of time squill are in bloom it looks amazing. I just hope these little buggers aren't invasive. It looks like they have the potential to be and there are already enough garden meanies in my yard as it is.

Speaking of pretty blooms, I just saw my first live hellebore bloom and I am awed at how pretty this plant is when other plants are just starting to wake up. I put in three 'Ivory Prince' last spring and am now thinking of adding more.


'Sem' false spirea is very colorful in the spring-
too bad I didn't get a better shot of how bright it actually is

 I like their leaves, their flowers, their light fragrance and the wildlife didn't touch them all year, probably because they are poisonous. I guess there's a native hellebore, false hellebore/indian poke (veratrum viride), that is also highly toxic and causes problems with livestock. If we didn't have neighbors with horses, I'd be tempted to try it; the leaves are very nice-looking.

There are other signs of welcome plant life in my flower beds: my robust male ferns are greening up and I see fresh pulmonaria leaves and flower buds. One of my favorite plants, 'Heaven Scent' jacob's ladder is looking good and I see my old-fashioned bleeding hearts pushing their ferny red shoots up a bit more each day. Lots of green or red shoots everywhere I look-very exciting!

'Eroica' bergenia in March after the snow melted

Others like bergenia, lamium, epimedium and thyme stayed kind of green all winter (well, purple in the case of the bergenia), which I would glimpse once in a while when the snow melted enough. Yep, we had plenty of snow; now we need rain. Last year was a really dry spring and I'm hoping it's not the same story this year. Please, please, please rain!

Lastly, my Sem false spirea is putting on its fiery spring show. It's leaves were so bright I just had to take a picture. So, with a happy heart after seeing all these signs of spring, I'll use the yucky weather to do some chores around the house and rest up for my next big weeding event.