What's Bloomin' in March?

I am a few days late for the March Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, but I hope Carol of May Dreams Gardens will forgive my tagging along, once the rain finally cleared, and I had a chance to search the garden for blooms.

I was happy to see a few signs of Spring.  The weather is still very cold, for March, and the snow line is very low in the local mountains.  Every year I have a crocus or two emerge from this corner of my garden, and I love the contrast of the cheery yellow against the dreariness of the fallen gunnera leaves:

This Winter Aconite (Eranthis) is smaller than I remember buying it last year, but it was delightful to find this tiny bloom peeking from my native/shade garden:

These mini irises are so cheery surrounding my granite bench.  I hope they will naturalize and fill the area:

This emerging sedum is not a bloom, but the little rosettes almost look like blooms:

My Missouri currant (Ribes odoratum) is not quite in bloom yet.  I wonder if it will tease me again this year with loads of flowers but next to no fruit?

I noticed today that the flowers of the male Skimmia are actually quite pretty, and dainty:

Although I originally bought the males to keep the females in berry:

The winter pink in this little sedum is so colourful, contrasting with the golden thyme, that it looks a bit like a bloom.  In the summer, the sedum will be silver blue:

I love my Petasites frigidus, but I find the flowers which emerge before the leaves a bit creepy looking.  When they get tall enough, I will cut them down, otherwise they will send seeds (which have little umbrellas like dandelion seeds) flying everywhere.

I hope Carol will forgive me - not only late, but also showing off my non-blooms, too.

Looking at other garden bloggers blooms, I am longing even more for Spring to arrive at last. All the best to everyone in their gardens this year!

Garden Glimpses : Late April 2007

Here are a few more pics from my garden, taken last week. Enjoy!

Last week, my kids shouted to me that they had found some enormous dandelion flowers, and came running to me with stalks of what turned out to be my Petasites Frigidus. This is its first year in our garden, and it is already spreading and establishing a pretty good territory in the wet, shady hillside area of my garden. So we quickly picked off the stalks, to prevent it from seeding itself liberally and taking over the remainder of the garden. What a beautiful addition it is, so far! I was pleased to catch a glimpse of it in the November/December 2005 issue of the Gardens West magazine, within "Trudi Brown's Oasis".

I received this epimedium (with the heart shaped leaves) from a gardening friend in the Fall, and enjoyed this single yellow flower stalk this year, next to a single pink epimedium flower stalk (I missed taking its photo, it was in its prime a few weeks earlier).

I bought these wonderful metal frogs many years ago, in a small shop in Gastown (Vancouver, BC). I placed them to hide the metal clips to which I had tied my tiny climbing hydrangea until it established itself against this concrete retaining well. Within a few years, the hydrangea has now reached the frogs, and spread very nicely to cover a patch of the wall. It has yet to flower, but I am more than content with the twisting stems and lush green foliage.

Here is a closeup of those whimsical little frogs. I wish I had bought dozens of them, of the many different colours. Perhaps one day I still will (if my family is not around to dissuade me).

This Pieris Japonica is not my favourite bush most of the year, but in the Spring, the new growth is a gorgeous pink. There is a truly spectacular large version of this bush in the neighbourhood, I hope to remember my digital camera one day when I am passing by.

This Fritillaria Imperialis is well past its prime, but still attracts interest and comments from passers-by. It grows proudly in our front garden.

This Japanese Maple looks great year round. I love this vivid red of the fresh Spring growth. It looks great under snow also, as this post will testify.

Garden Glimpses : Mid April

Work and life has been overwhelming lately, but I have managed to take a few more photos, along with many hours of pulling weeds. So here I am, 10 days later, posting them. Enjoy!

I wish I had taken a few photos last week when the two cherry trees were in full bloom - it was quite glorious! This slightly out of focus shot, taken 10 days ago, shows the buds starting into bloom. I hope this indicates a good year for the cherries. The Lapin cherry had about a dozen fruits last year, of which the birds ate most. The Rainier cherry was planted later, and didn't fruit last year. So I am excited at the prospect of its first year of fruit!

The missouri currant (Ribes Odoratum) bushes are loaded with flowers this year, whereas they had only a couple strings of flowers last year. Again, I hope this indicates lots of this sour little berry will soon be on its way, and one day I will have enough to make current juice. My original plant was a sucker dug up from my great aunt's garden in the Okanagan, and every time I have trimmed the plant, I have stuck the trimmings in the ground, so have propagated a number of bushes now (not to mention that they sucker very vigorously also).

This handsome plant has been identified as Petasites Frigidus, thanks to the helpful plant experts on the UBC Botanical Garden Forums. I spotted it from some forest roads near Hope, BC, and it seemed to be growing near water in a number of occasions. So I dug up a small plant or two from the roadside, and gave them a new home in the wet and shady hillside area of my garden. That was only last summer! This spring, more than a dozen flower stalks emerged, followed by those wonderful leaves (reminds me of a small gunnera - the petasites leaf is about the size of my hand). I think it will soon be taking over that hillside. I'm already offering some to my neighbour, for growing beside his pond.

My daughter, who has not shown much interest in gardening (my son is much more interested), has recently become interested in building structures for fairies in the garden, such as this twig & leaf shelter in her "fairy garden". She even expressed, at a recent plant sale, that she wanted to pick up some plants for her "fairy garden". So we bought her a Stella D'Oro daylily, and also a small shrub (I've forgotten the name at the moment).