Spring!!!

Spring officially arrived earlier this week.  On Thursday, March 20th, to be more specific.  At 12:58 in the afternoon, to be exact.  And, so far, the weather has co-operated and been pleasantly mild since Spring began.  It's been a tough winter here this year.  I can tell my plants have suffered.  Some may not make it.  And others show damage from the cold.

My forsythia has blooms on it.  The harbinger of Spring.  The plant itself looks pretty sad, but at least there are some clusters of bright yellow.

Every year I tell myself that I am going to transplant the periwinkle so it will grow under the forsythia.  They bloom about the same time and the blue and yellow together would be so charming.   Maybe this is the year...

My camellia bush is blooming.  I hate to say things like this, but it doesn't really look very good.  The fungus that attacks camellias is having a heyday with my bush.   This flower looks okay, though.  I have fond memories of picking camellias when I was a little girl.

My blue hyacinths smell so good!  And, of course, the color is incredible!  I love having them in my garden.

Some of my muscaris are are blooming.   They aren't doing well this year.  I don't know if part of it has to do with the wicked winter.  I do know part of it has to do with the deer.   My neighbor doesn't have his dog any more and the deer have decided that my garden is a lovely place to eat.  And, guess what...  They seem to really like my muscaris.  If you look, you can see the chomped leaves.

I bought this hellebore as a tiny seedling at a Cooperative Extension garden sale probably about five years ago.   This is the first year it has bloomed!  I'm so excited!  I love the pale pink and pale green tints in it.   Several weeks ago, the deer had eaten its leaves, but thankfully they haven't discovered the flower yet.  And I think there is another bud on it, too.

Have a beautiful day!

An exciting discovery...

There are so many new things in my garden. New leaves. New buds. New flowers. It is wonderful that so much is happening once again. And, of course, I am finding more and more things that need to be done. Pruning, feeding, mulching, transplanting. I am even contemplating almost completely redoing one of my flower beds. And I haven't even started on the vegetable garden yet.




I found that my camellia has bloomed at last. She is so pretty. She reminds me of picking camellias for flower arrangements when I was growing up. But my most exciting discovery of the day is hidden amongst the leaves of my grape hyacinth bulbs. Look what I found:


Have a beautiful day!

Beauty in the snow...

Well, it snowed almost four inches yesterday and last night. The trees and branches were so beautiful this morning, but it is melting quickly. That's o.k. Living almost all my life in California makes me so much much more comfortable with the warm and dry than the cold and wet. Also, I'm just dying to be able to work in my garden and the snow and the continual mud of the red clay is making that a little difficult.




Henry and Lily don't look quite as white against the snow. It is really funny to watch ducks in the snow. Rain, they just love, but snow is a whole different matter.




My yellow crocus is almost buried in snow and hasn't bloomed yet. But I found another bit of color this morning. A camellia bud is starting to show its pink. It won't be long, now, until spring gets here. And I can hardly wait!


Have a beautiful day!

Bloom Day January 2010...

Quite honestly, the only plants that are truly blooming are my beloved, cheerful Johnnies. Maybe that is cheating because if not tricked into blooming in the fall, they wouldn’t bloom until the spring.



But I am so thankful to have them. And they don’t seem to complain about being persuaded to flower throughout the winter for me.




The African violet my sister-in-law brought me at Thanksgiving is still blooming, so I think it is probably o.k. for me to take credit for keeping it going. Although, now that I have said that, it will probably stop blooming and then die.

{Saintpaulia}

I am starting to see leaf buds on many of my plants which gives me hope that spring actually will come this year. But there aren’t many flower buds yet. My camellia is one of the ones with flower buds.

{Camellia - I don't know the rest; I've lost the plant tag.}

The buds on this daphne will soon open to their fragrant white blooms.

{Daphne odora 'Alba'}

And you can already see the pink forming on this daphne.

{Daphne odora}

My Purple Rain pansies look a bit bedraggled, but they continue to struggle on. I guess winter is taking its toll on them as it is on me.

{Viola x wittrockiana 'Purple Rain'}

It finally warmed up enough that I was able to look into my greenhouse without fear of heat escaping and I was absolutely thrilled to find that everything is doing well. It was such a relief to know that my plants stayed warm enough not to be damaged while it was so cold outside. And I found a tiny pink bud!

{Erodium reichardii 'Charm'}

One of my pitcher plants has a bud on it. I think that is the bud I am most excited about right now.

{Sarracenia flava}

But my Johnnies continue to be my favorites as they unabashedly cheer me on through winter.


Have a beautiful day!

Colors of Winter...

It is too cold to write. It is too cold to take pictures. But I am forging ahead any way. (I was just informed that if I was a sculptor, I could forge a head.) I braved the freezing temperatures and the frigid wind and ventured out to capture the colors of winter.

{Buddleja davidii var. nanhoensis 'Nanho Blue'}

I think of winter as being a grey, colorless time of year. Except for my Johnnies, of course. But the past few days, I have been noticing subtle colors.

{Hydrangea macrophylla}

These are definitely not the bold, dashing colors of summer. Or even the sweet, enchanting colors of spring. They are wise, subdued colors, beckoning closer inspection.

{Gaultheria procumbens ‘Red Baron,’}

The leaves of the Creeping Jenny trailing over the edge of an abandoned birdbath have bronzed.

{Lysimachia nummularia 'Aurea'}

Shifting shadow patterns have sun-burned the camellia's leaves.

{Camellia}

One lone periwinkle bloom hangs on despite the cold.

{Vinca minor}

The underside of the leaves of one of my coral bells shows an astonishing purple.

{Heuchera}

Sunlight glows through the new leaves of one of my pitcher plants.

{Sarracenia}

Delight! Oh, delight! I was thrilled to discover a bud forming for a bloom to come in spring.


Have a beautiful day!