Signs of Spring - Daffodils and a Hellebore

The weather has been so nice for the past few days that I've been busy working outside and have not had time to write anything. It is colder today so I'm back at the computer.

My first daffodils opened yesterday, April 8th. I don't grow any dwarf ones which bloom even earlier, but of the trumpet daffodils, the first one for me is always 'Rijnveld's Early Sensation'.

There is nothing special about this daffodil other than it being the first one out of the gate in spring and I guess that alone makes it fairly special.

Besides the daffodil, I also have a Hellebore niger blooming really well.

I will write more about hellebores another time, but will mention that one of the things I like about them is that they do not grow from a bulb but still bloom really early when mostly only bulbs are flowering.

Signs of Spring

The cool thing about early spring is that because so few things are growing you really notice every little change. Today I saw that some Crocus chrysanthus have started to bloom in the big perennial border along my driveway. All things being equal, these should be the first crocus to bloom, but these are in the open so they are blooming after the Dutch crocus on the south side of the house.

The other big news is that the first shoots of a bleeding heart (Dicentra spectabilis) have appeared.

This is exciting to me because bleeding heart is the first non-bulb perennial to start growing at my place. Non-gardeners will have trouble sharing my enthusiasm over something like this, but I think most gardeners will understand.

Signs of Spring - Iris reticulata

In another sign that spring really is coming, my first Iris reticulata started blooming today. Iris reticulata are a spring bulb I wish more people would grow. They are at least as easy as crocus, maybe easier - squirrels don't eat the shoots and flowers of these iris as they do crocus. Pretty much all you have to do is push them into the ground and you have them for years and years. They bloom just about the same time as crocus, perhaps a day or two later.

Most of the time they will gradually clump up so a single bulb or two will become a cluster in a few years.

These little iris are actually several different species, the most common being Iris reticulata. In catalogs and books they are sometimes called rock garden iris or bulb iris. The blue one pictured above is 'Joyce'. There is also a white called 'Natasha', and a pale blue one called 'Cantab'. I had a dark purple one at my old house which was really striking but I can't remember the name. A second species you often see is Iris danfordiae, the only one I know of that is yellow. For me it multiplies more slowly and is earlier than the others. It is a really bright flourescent yellow with green markings.

You can find these bulbs in the fall at Downtown Home and Garden in Ann Arbor or Coleman's Farm Market in Ypsilanti. For better selection and prices, however, you need to mail order them. I have had good luck ordering these and other bulbs from John Scheepers. As bulbs go, these iris are not very expensive. Last year you could get 100 of most kinds for between $15-$20, about the same price as crocus.

Because they multiply, I like to plant the bulbs singly 3-4 inches apart, in drifts. They take up almost no room and you can even plant them on top of other bulbs like daffodils.

Signs of Spring

A few more signs of spring around my place. A few crocus are blooming against the house in addition to the snowdrop that has been there for a couple weeks.


There are also some snowdrops now blooming in the open in the shade garden. They have actually been blooming out there for more than a week but the camera took an 8 day vacation to Florida without me, so no pictures until now.

While I was taking pictures of the snowdrops I also noticed these seeds sprouting:



These are seeds of Scilla siberica, the little intense blue scillas that will begin blooming in a few weeks. The seeds begin germinating under the snow in March and by April will look like little blades of grass. I mentioned this once to a friend of mine and a horrified expression came on her face as she said, "Oh NO! I thought they were grass and spent hours pulling them all out!" If you leave those little blades of grass year after year you eventually get that "field of blue" effect that looks so cool in spring.

First Sign of Spring

There's still about half a foot of snow on the ground but on the south side of my house, under the overhang, there isn't any snow but there is one snowdrop.



People who are not gardeners don't appreciate things like this, but gardeners understand the significance of not just seeing a snowdrop, but seeing the first snowdrop in your own garden. It is because we notice things like this little snowdrop that gardeners know spring is returning even as the temperature is in the teens and the snow is still falling.