Picture Post

Yesterday afternoon after I had finally faced the worst of the end-of-fiscal/academic year stuff at work, the weather turned mild and the sun came out.  Pathetic fallacy, I am a fan!

I took the opportunity to (leave work early and) take some pictures of the state of the side yard.  

We have the Zwanenburg Bronze crocuses.  They're three weeks into their flowering and they've been blasted by a couple of rough snow storms.  Some of the blooms are looking a little haggard, but they're still radiating springy glory. 

There is the patch of Pickwicks, just starting.  There is a stray pickwick on the other side of the thyme to the zwb's.  I must have dug it up at some point (I do that ALL THE TIME) and just dumped it wherever.  It's opening, too.  

There are some daffodil starts poking through and some interesting tulip-looking things.  I am quite excited about the hyacinth, which is opening up, starlike, when the weather permits.

There is still a small pool of ice in the front, but most of the bulb-filled places are clear.  Yesterday on the way home from work I saw some blooming snowdrops and early yellow (but not Zw) crocuses.  Ahhh.  Spring at last!

Pickwick up

The first pickwick crocus is up this afternoon.  The sun has come out (finally) and the Zwanenburgs look great.  Lots of tips coming through the earth now, even in the front.  I am excited!

Up-and-comers

The next crocuses to come out will be the Pickwicks.  I like them, and am quite relieved that some will come out this year despite all the seeds produced in that neck of the yard last summer.  The flowers are up but not out.  They are still robed in their protective covering and it's only by peering very closely at them that I'm confident that it's the Pickwicks at all.  

There is lots of promising activity in the front, but nothing has really started to come out yet.  It's all just pale fingers poking through at this stage.  I was discussing the garden with my mother today and her snowdrops always come out before her crocuses.  It makes me think that I should put snowdrops in a genuinely warm and sunny place, too.  I can't imagine that they could beat those Zwanenburgs, though.   The Zwanenburgs are wonderfully up now, anyway.  

Where does "up" begin?

The lovely little buds of the zwanenburg bronze crocuses continue their metamorphoses into cheery yellow-and-brown flowers.  I am wondering how I define "up".  Is it when the flowers open?  They were open yesterday afternoon, but not so much that I could see their innards; just enough to make a hole at the top.  Does that count?  What do I define as the start of the crocus season this year?  Paying attention makes new questions arise.  

I am enjoying the start of the season, though... it's still mostly below zero and so I love these tough little beauties for cheering me up so early in the year.  Sure, we'll still have snow storms and sleet and ice and rain but the flowers think it's spring so I'm not going to worry if our salt supply can last another 3 storms.  I'm not going to panic if I don't know where my walk-on-ice boot accessories (yak-trax for those of you in the know) are.  Winter's grip is loosening and I only need to step out my front door to remind myself.  

Hooray, I was wrong!

After yesterday's post, I realised that I hadn't actually pulled up the boughs above the zwanenburg bronze crocuses, and those were the absolute earliest crocuses last year.  This morning, I am very pleased to announce, I found the crazy early zwanenburgs nearly up and at 'em.  I would say that these aren't blooming yet, but they're not far from it.  

I'd like to add that I was braving -10 temperatures to take that picture.  Honestly, there is nothing to suggest that it might be spring even any time soon except for the early early early crocus flowers.  

That's some creeping thyme next to it on the left, muscling in on its territory.  I'll be cutting that back once the weather stays above freezing for a few days. 

This is what the bent crocuses look like.  It's not great, is it?  However, I do think that overall the effect of the boughs is positive, so I'm not changing my plans for using any and all christmas trees available in the same manner in future years.

I cannot WAIT for spring!  

One year on

It's not a blogiversary, but on March 4 2008, we had our first blooms in the garden.  

That's not going to repeat today.  We have been having properly nasty spring weather: Ice, snow, rain, sleet, icy-sleet, ice-rain, snow-ice, snow-sleet and a number of other things coming out of the sky.  After a huge amount of rain over the weekend much of the built-up winter snow has gone.  There are still the depressing blackened snowbanks lurking with their dog-mess surprises yet to melt, but for the most part our snowcover has gone.  This means that the garden, covered with pine boughs as it is, can be now seen for the first time after its winter nap.  

I pulled up a few of the pine branches yesterday and found many tulip and daffodil starts.  There are some quite far advanced crocus sprouts, but I think they're so far along because they started in the fall.  They didn't enjoy the boughs and they certainly didn't enjoy being encased in ice.  The ice is still substantial enough in the front (which gets less sun) that I couldn't pull the boughs up to look underneath.  I'm surprised by how green the oregano and grape hyacinth leaves are.  

When the meteorologists were predicting sunshine for the rest of the week, I thought the bulbs would love that and come up to bloom in a couple of weeks.  However, we must again banish all thoughts of sunshine from our thoughts because the predictions have reverted to their usual snow, sleet, ice, rain, etc.  I guess I'll have to wait until April this year.