Microclimates

I know that my garden has patches that are hotter or cooler than others.  I have been thinking of them as being "earlier" or "later" as I see the emergence of the spring bulbs.  Obviously, the patch with the Zwanenburg Bronze crocus is the warmest.  Very little is blooming at all in the city, let alone in my garden, at the time that those little lovelies come out.  

The next to spring forth are the pickwicks, in a bunch up the yard from the Zwanenburgs, but a rogue pickwick this year sprouted not far from the zwb's.  Interestingly, that particular flower came out with his compatriots up the yard.  However, even though I would say that the pickwicks are through now, I do have a couple just starting.  They're rogues who got dumped in the front.  I have to be honest and say that I can't be sure their lateness isn't due to the depth the bulbs got planted, but I suspect it has to do with how much longer winter lingers in the front than in the side.  They started on April 17, compared to the patch on the side, which started four weeks earlier on March 26.  

I have some confidence that it's not just a random effect of bulb depth because there is also a hyacinth in the front.   Even though the side yard hyacinths are in glorious full bloom right now, the one in front is just starting to muster up a flower spear.  Now, maybe it won't actually bloom this summer ... I shouldn't count my chickens.  Or, maybe the thing I think is a hyacinth will turn out to be something else that I've mis-identified at this early stage.  But I think it's because the climate in my tiny garden ranges quite a bit.  

That's useful information.  I need to mull it over, but I think I can squeeze even more wonderful flowering out of those few square feet.  Of course, the front, which gets spring later, will be shady for the summer, so I can't rely too much on the long spring.  Still, I think it's worth considering for next year.  Maybe I should put little patches of snowdrops (of exactly the same kind) in the various different places in the yard.  Then I might be able to get a purer sense of the timing of spring.  Plus, it's experimenting, and I like experimenting.