Who's next?

Traditionally, I think the pickwicks are up immediately after the zwanenburg bronzes. However, this is what the most mature of the pickwicks looks like.

And this is what I found in the front this morning. I think we've got a winning snowdrop, here. I should put snowdrops in the side; they'd be up and at 'em in February!

By the way, I took those photographs through sleet, which had previously been hail and will likely be snow later. Do I care? No. It is spring ... the crocuses don't lie.

Vertebrate Softie

I went out today and scrabbled about in the side yard until I had filled two buckets with organic junk and my fingers were numb.  I don't know what I'll do with or about all of those rocks that were heaved to the top.  It's clear it will have to be something.  Perhaps there is a ... riddler? ... is that what the soil sieves are called? Anyway, perhaps there is a soil sieve in my future. I had some positive reinforcement after all the work, though:  I saw someone walking by admiring the flowers.  

And how could they not, when they're looking so fine?  And when the hyacinths are so gamely giving blooming a try?

In truth of fact, the zwanenburg bronzes are starting to fade.  They didn't much like me pulling the leaf pile away.  Apparently it was a load-bearing leaf pile.  

I had a bit of a quandary when I was doing the clearing.  There is a plant that is taking over the patch and I'm pretty sure that it's a weed.  Basically, if it grows like that, it has to be a weed.  The thing is that I have put a few things in the earth that I know to be "aggressive".  I thought a patch of thyme would be more welcome than an empty rockpile.  I was sure some mint might be welcome, if only to do battle with the thyme.  I genuinely want some lavender to take hold.

Unfortunately, I haven't been the most meticulous record-keeper and I can't for the life of me remember what was deliberate.  

At any rate, I yanked up a fair amount of the stuff that looked like this:

I left in the ones that looked like these:

I didn't do much to improve the front, but these lovely little pale purple guys (nameless because I am clueless) are now poking through.  What heroes they are!  They are battling against seriously bad odds.  

Sunny Day

Wow.  Even after the snow on Friday night, the sun today makes it feel like spring for real.  

The snowdrops think so.  Actually, I have a thing to say about the snowdrops, lovely and spring-y as they are:  They are really dirty.  How does that work?  The crocuses are apparently not really dirty.  I know that one of them is white as white can be and so it will show the dirt, but the other ones look clean as a whistle, even on close inspection.  I don't get it.

The crazy zwanenburg bronzes think it's spring, but who can trust them?  It's been spring for them for over a month!

The lovely satiny no-name purple crocuses think it is spring.  They're starting to show their saffron cores.

The pickwicks know that it's a sunny spring day and they are therefore baring their sunny spring centres to the world.  They're so intricate!  

I know it's spring and time to clean up the garden, but I haven't yet.  The frost heaving heaved up last year's potato (it looks nastier and somehow more alien in real life.  This picture doesn't do it justice).

The tulips need to be re-buried, but they don't seem to mind being forced out of the ground and they aren't being eaten by hungry, bleary-eyed squirrels, either.

The daylilies are also baring roots (or whatever the horrible finger-like things are). I probably killed a good percentage of when I tried to split and spread them.  

Still, some remain and are showing a bit of green at the tips which gives me hope for daylilies this year.

Slow news day

The mint continues to be only one tiny plant, although it requires less squinting to see.  The marigolds are just starting to get their first true leaves.  The (surviving) beets are looking a bit bigger, and the potted-up peas are doing very well.  I think that probably the basil wasn't planted deep enough and the white hairy thing was a root.  There is, at any rate, a green stem-like thing above it in every case.  

Outdoors, the zwanenburgs look like they're still hanging on, the pickwicks are still looking fresh and new and a purple nameless bunch of crocuses are starting.  The snowdrops are struggling, but a few more are coming out to bolster the morale of the first ones.

Crocus-pocus

The zwanenburg bronze crocuses have survived a good number of snow and ice storms.  Furthermore, they've been out for a month now.  That's good crocus.

The lovely pickwicks were much more sensible and waited until now to come out.

The hyacinths are surprisingly far along.  In my memory, the grape hyacinths came out first, but this year the normal big-type hyacinths are well along already.

The snowdrops are busy being lovely and unloved in the front patch.  I don't know where I should have put them, but clearly they're in the wrong spot. 

Peeking Pickwicks

The Pickwick crocuses are starting to come out.  The snow in the side yard is fully melted today (it rained quite a lot of yesterday) and the crocuses are showing their faces.