Spring Forward

erythronium revolutum from Jane Platt garden

My eyes rest for a moment, here and there, where a new sprout pokes up that wasn't there yesterday.  Today's news is the erythronium and the trillium.

T. 'Kurabayashii', 3rd year, three blossoms

T. 'Kurabayashii', hello spring

The things that give me pleasure now are so simple, compared to the contortions we tend to crave in our youth.

allium mash up

Since I am a fool for allium, there are sprouts upon sprouts popping up throughout the Long Bed, and now in the bearded iris beds, and a few pots on the deck, peeking out amongst the pansies.  I tagged them all as I planted them, but the birds and the hoes and the rakes have shuffled them for me, and I can merely guess at which is which...only the little azureums and sphaerocephalum are easy to discern with their grassy foliage.  I think 'pinball wizard' has the huge fleshy buds just coming up now, but what of the 'christophii' and the 'gladiator' and the 'excelsior' and the 'bulgaricum' and the 'purple sensation'?  Maybe this year I'll sort them out, at least visually.   The tag situation is impossible now.  Then there's hyacinths and camassia shoulder to shoulder creating more confusion.  All these fellows are really getting me excited for the May show!

Dutch Iris, Hemerocallis,  Eremerus and Allium basking in the late winter sun

   

Then there's the delightful shock of a blossom or a scent!  The daffodils, 'tete a tete', began revealing their charming quintessentially daffodil yellow a few days ago...they'd given notice, of course, with their swelling capsules of buds, but the iris lazica startled me deliciously when I happened upon it...I'd no idea when I planted them last spring in April that they'd already bloomed in March!

Iris lazica, first of the season

This is the first year the little paperbush (edgeworthia chrysantha) seedling has charmed me with flowers.  After three years of potting up and coddling, I will promote it to a proper container worthy of its maturity instead of another nursery pot.  The scent alone has convinced me.

The prunus mume 'kanko bai' is nearly done in the front courtyard, but has earned its keep by cheering me up in the dregs of January.

The basket I made Christmas Day continues to draw my eye right outside the living room window. This project turned out to be even more satisfying than I could have ever known.  When the rest of the garden is just too far away to venture out in the cold or the wet, right outside the window is a charming landscape to get lost in...