Today's Finds 3-14-07

Looks like things are picking up a bit of speed. The earliest of my daffodils are out. Here's a 1-2-3 of Fragrant Breeze:



The first flowers open on Sweetness:


Some Ice Follies type (unknown from old mixtures):


And a close up:


Remember those Tete-aTete daffodils just beginning to open the other day? Look now:


It looks like February Gold will be open tomorrow (March Gold in my garden).

Roman Hyacinths are just beginning and showing a bit of frost damage to the leaves. They'll get taller. This is a white variety which is really light pink. They seem to increase pretty quickly and this clump is pretty large. I actually received these as a bonus from Old House Gardens, a very good bulb source. I wish I could say the rarer blue one increased as well (not so).


By the sliding door into the basement, these poor grape hyacinths were tossed some years ago. One of my cats (Leo!) uses a shrub here (that I'd like to remove) as a scratching post and I think the cats also dig for voles and such here by the deck...so, it is proof of just how tough they are that somehow they manage to survive and even increase. I've even found them lying on the soil surface.


(Nice chickweed....yep! I keep saying there's a garden there somewhere in my backyard....under the chickweed.)

First glimpse of a tulip for this year.



Jeanne d'Arc crocus beginning to show in a clump:


That's Dianthus that the crocus are coming up in. About six years ago or so, I grew a dianthus assortment from seed and they're still around. They struggle at times and I worry I might lose them. I hope they continue as there are some that bloom that are quite pretty and I've not seen available for purchase (doesn't mean they aren't...just that I haven't seen them). Some varmint digging has been going on around one group in particular, so it looks a bit iffy. They are very nice when they bloom and rebloom. You'll see that I...do...like dianthus as the garden comes into bloom. Good news! Today's mail brought the Shake Away...so long...I hope...voles!

I've found getting a picture of these Lilac Beauty crocus difficult. They're nice but very pale and don't seem to photograph well. At some point, I might just move them to bloom with some other crocus (or vice versa) as maybe another color would give them some punch.


Here's a striped purple crocus (from a mixture) under my crabapple tree. I anticipated quite a show until last year the rabbits discovered them and ate them. This year, I'm happy to see any back.


Here's my oldest Hellebore (and probably most neglected). I truly believed what I had read and put it in dry shade. It was a tiny seedling and took years to bloom (not helped by the very dry shade, I'm sure). See how it starts how quite dark in bud? The flower itself isn't at all and actually tends toward greenish.


That should do it for now!