Snowdrops! (or, more Very Local Phenology)

[pameladean]

The snowdrops under the big peony in the rose bed are up and blooming. These are such tiny ones that even if you lie on your back in the mud, it's difficult to see the insides of the flowers. They look very fine and demure, however. Having spotted those, I went about looking in all the early-spring places. A lot of crocuses are coming up, and there are two yellow-budded winter aconites in the side yard. There's a lot of evidence of digging in all the spots where Eric and I put in the crocuses and narcissi last fall, so I'm not sure what is going to happen yet. The diggers have not gotten down to the depth of the narcissi, so I hope those may still come up. The crocuses may all have been eaten in the bulb, however.

The white rose of York has small leaf buds. The Henry Kelsey, wiser in the ways of the north, sits there looking as if it has died, but I know that it hasn't.

I took Ari out for the first time since the big snow. He enjoyed running along the now-horizontal trunks of the downed arbor-vita. The lilac whose main trunk landed in our yard has buds all over it; the trunk is cracked but not broken off. I hope that the neighbors do something about propping it back up before mowing season, as presently there is no easy way to get the lawn mower from the back to the side yard.

Other signs of life include the indefatigable motherwort, dame's rocket rosettes, common yarrow leaves, and bright-red new growth on the semi-wild rosebushes.

I got to do a limited amount of playing in the dirt: I dug up the invading grass clumps in a bed where I knew there were tulip and crocus bulbs that had not made an appearance last year. Sure enough, there they were. I hope that in the absence of the strangling grass, they will come up and bloom properly.

A cardinal is calling "What cheer" over and over again, with a number of trills and flourishes for variety. I had better get back to my book now. I hope you are having good days out there.

P.

Comments

[inlaterdays.livejournal.com]

i love the first flowers of spring, and those early green buds.

[pameladean]

So do I, and sometimes the Minnesota spring is so abrupt that one hardly sees them at all. This is nice and leisurely, so far.

P.

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

We are having good days. The birds have been quite lively for about two weeks here. I am not as good on songs but I do have one chap who starts about a half hour before dawn. I've hree cardinals now or maybe four. I see two malesbut the second female could be shyer. And I have young starlings back. I haven't seen them in several years.

Most of my early flowering things have petered out here. They did better in the garden I put in on the hill at my parents. I think our heavy wet soils are hard on them here. What I notice then are some later things that are sprouting, daffs and daylilies and iris mainly, altho the red red buds on the chinese tree peonies (would you like one?) behind the x-christmas tree are a special joy. I was a little fretty because of the lack of snow, and then my favorite, the unfurling tulips, grey green and burgundy edged.

I'd be curious about your daffs/narcissi. I know they are poisonous and don't get eaten, or so I've been told. It wouldn't surprise me at all that they'd get moved, except to wonder if the squirrels dig by habit like the dogs.

[pameladean]

I've never seen evidence that a daffodil bulb had been eaten. I have seen them dug up and left on the ground, where they dry up if not put back fairly promptly. The squirrels did that with the winter aconite, too, repeatedly; it's also poisonous, but they would dig it up, say, "Ewww!" and leave it to dry out. I have not seen my most recent daffodils lying about on the ground, so I hope they will come up all right.

I am not sure that tree peonies are hardy here; what's your agricultural zone? Or rather, I guess, what's theirs?

P.

Tree Peonies

[biblio-tech.livejournal.com]

They are hardy here. I used to have a lovely yellow one, but apparently my flower bed (where the birch used to be) has verticulum in it...the poor thing withered away after four years and all my aconite (Monkshood) and delphiniums did too. The regular peonies are happy there, though. Or as happy as they'll be with not enough sun.

Re: Tree Peonies

[pameladean]

I sense a tree peony conspiracy here. 8-)

P.

[marileeann.livejournal.com]

My flower bed is still under several inches of snow. Next week is supposed to be in the 50s, so maybe I'll see some green growth soon, too!

I am envious.

[pameladean]

There's always somebody else's spring to envy, isn't there? I always drool over Jackie's. But you aren't really very far from us, so it seems hard.

P.

[biblio-tech.livejournal.com]

And I'm only a mile away and still have ice and snow in the back yard. My snowdrops usually show up about the time other folks' crocuses are starting.

[pameladean]

I still have ice and snow in my back yard, too, just not where the snowdrops are. I had a couple of big patches of them in shadier areas, but they didn't last as long as these little guys.

I just realized that with the loss of the arborvita, the little flower bed it was in is going to have a radically different character. Well, it'll still be dry, but not dry shade, which is a difficult set of conditions on the whole.

P.