Blissful surprises for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen and all the ships at sea, welcome to another round of Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, created for your viewing pleasure by the always-delightful Carol of May Blooms Gardens! This particular episode of GBBD is of great satisfaction to me because, finally, I have something outside I can share with you all.


Let's get right to the entertainments for this lovely cold but sunny day, starting out with the crocus collection. Although schoolbus yellow is not my favourite shade of yellow at the rest of the year, it's like sunshine made solid at this season, when spring is still a little coy, winds have some bite in them, and most of the garden is still shuddering off its old drab winter coat.


These little darlings have wine-purple accents on their slightly different shade of yellow, and I can see them from the house with no trouble at all.


Hamamelis 'Diane', who has been working on flowering for about two months now is in comfortable and wonderful full bloom. The only drawback is that this cultivar doesn't have the fragrance of some, but I plan to add 'Arnold's Promise' and 'Jelena' to the garden very soon, as well as our native species.


A couple of the heaths, glad to be clear of their winter mulch--only put down to protect them from the cold drying winds of midwinter--are just yawning and stretching and preparing to flower in the next couple of weeks. Although all my heaths and heathers are small, I have more heathers than I do heaths. But I'm going to Bunchberry Nurseries on Saturday to give a talk, and will promptly remedy my heath-shortage at that time.


If memory serves me correctly--it very often does not--these are pink flowered chionodoxa, or glory-of-the-snow. They are in the rock-garden in a south-facing spot, and tend to come up promptly and joyously as soon as sunlight hits them regularly.


These aren't flowers, obviously, but I just love the way Sedum 'Angelina' is contrasting with the rich deep colour of the sempervivum, don't you?


A host of single-form galanthus has popped up out in the back garden. I don't remember planting them and I don't seem to have photos from other years--normally there are a few leucojum or summer snowflakes here, but not for quite a few weeks yet. Maybe they've spontaneously generated, knowing of my love for snowdrops of any size or colour?


Looking a little tattered, but still sweetly charming, the first of the Johnny Jump-ups that freerange around here have opened up to the sun. I happen to adore any viola, and these remind me of my grandmother, who loved them too.


After several days of wet weather, the paddock had dried up enough that we could put Leggo and his donkey-from-Mars out today. Leggo has been charging around the paddock snorting and bucking and acting silly a good part of the day, while that tangle of feet in the background is Jenny, down for a roll to scratch her back.


There were two things outside today I was especially happy to see. This is the first one--common as can be, but still cheering to my heart. It's coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) the first wildflower to start blooming here; its little yellow flowers come up first, followed by its big thick leaves in a couple of weeks time. Now all I need to hear is the frogs glunking--they haven't started yet, probably still thawing out, but their songs and the coltsfoot blooms tells me that it IS spring, no matter the temperature or the precipitation.


And this...can it possibly BE???? Thanks, I am sure, to Frances of Faire Garden, who advised me some weeks ago on what to do with my hellebore plant...IT'S GOING TO FLOWER! Jubilation reigns supreme. This is good gardening karma, which to my mind proves that Kylee is gonna have blue poppies, and Lisa is going to have annual poppies, (but I can't remember where she told us about her poppy challenges) and...well, whatever challenges YOU is going to behave itself this year.

Ohhhhh. I hope I haven't jinxed myself by showing these hellebore buds...

To wrap up today's post, thank you so much to whomever of you nominated Bloomingwriter for Mouse and Trowel awards. I'm very touched by your support, especially as the nominations land me in the company of some of MY favourite bloggers. There are so many marvelous blogs out there, it's hard to pick only a few, and I want to vote for everyone. (but we only get one ballot, so I've had to flip a coin in a few cases.) I'd just like to win the LOTTERY, so then I could go visit everyone--or bring everyone here for a visit in midsummer. Bouquets to all of you, and best wishes to all the nominees.