Special garden post, March 14, 2010- Spring is here

In the early spring there are snowdrops and winter aconite. The aconite are these little yellow flowers. I have been growing them for 5-10 years. Who is counting at this point? They reach a tipping point, like so many plants, where they begin to spread. In some of the pictures you can see the different generations.
In fact I did something this week I have not done before. I started transplanting some aconite, the ones that were blooming in the paths. They had just jumped over the brick edging and were starting to bloom in the path. I wouldn't ordinarily recommend transplanting blooming bulbs. If they come up in the paths transplanting will be better than being stepped on.






It seemed like it was a long snowy winter. Certainly we had continuous snow cover for almost 3 months. That snow cover acted as insulation for many plants that were green in November. Pansies are suppose to come back in the spring. This winter the foliage essentially never died back. Here you have one picture from this week and one picture from November 23. Most but not all of the actual blooms did not survive. Some blooms that must have been there is late November are pretty much looking like they are blooms now.



Here are other pictures.







Finally here is one of the emerging hellebores. They bloom early, emerging from the ground carrying the bud near the top. I think by the first of April there will be many hellebores of many different colors. They seed like crazy too.