March Flowers 2021

2021

March Flowers - finally - we were getting desperate!

This has been a long winter - with Covid 19 limiting our social access, 

and with the weather limiting our outdoor experiences, it has been a long winter. . . 

The first flowers to appear are the snowdrops.

Snowdrops are followed by crocus.

The rabbits have clearly been enjoying these.  They ate the tops of the leaves that emerge before the buds.

Speaking of rabbits, they enjoyed their own personal tulip salad bar.  They ate the growing tops of almost every tulip in the garden.

We are pretty sure it's rabbits - they left some poop when they ate the crocus tops.   Deer like tulips, too, but they usually eat one here and there.  This garden had been almost all eaten.

D immediately went to buy fencing to enclose the gardens that had edibles.

One garden fenced and time for a well deserved break!

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Gwendolyn sent a lovely picture of her white and lavender violets, so I had to wander out to see if we had any.  It is early for us, but I was delighted to find:

These lavender and white crocus were planted by previous owners.  

"Some flies are bee mimics. They can be distinguished from bees by their single pair of wings, and their notably bulging eyes and short antennae. Flies do not actively collect pollen, and lack pollen collecting hairs. They will visit flowers to drink nectar, though, and may thus act as pollinators. While some plant species have evolved to rely on flies for pollination, most plants are better pollinated by bees." https://energy.wisc.edu/bee-guide/WI-Spring-Bee-Guide.pdf

We think this is not a bee.

We keep hoping for early daffodils, but this is all we have on March 21.

Some of the daffodil heads are up.  The brownish plant on the bottom right (around 4 o'clock) is fritillaria, crown imperial.  

March sky is always interesting.

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And the last bit of good news for March, 2021, is we have a daffodil blooming!

YAY!!!!

And for April Fools Day, tomorrow,

we are expecting 4-6 inches of snow!

To see 2020 garden pics:

Second half of September

September 1st half.

Second half of August

First half of August.

2nd half of July.

First half of July garden.

Garden at the End of June

And the first half of June is here.

You can see the end of May, 2020, here.

Here is the first week of May

Daffodils 2020

The middle of April is here.

First week of April.

The Garden in the First Week of April

The first week of April, 2020 is ending.   We have been impatiently waiting.  This fall, we planted
100 daffodils
50 tête a tête (little) daffodils
50 naturalizing (small-bulb) daffodils
50 Emperor Tulips
50 "value" tulips
75 of three types of alliums ‘Atropurpureum & Nigrum’ and ‘Bulgaricum’
48 crocus
plus several peonies, iris, and daylilies
All this is in addition to the bulbs, daylilies, and hostas we transplanted from the farm.

So far, we have seen crocus.  These are blooming near some daylilies along the front walk.

We also have crocus around the sundial.














The very healthy looking plant on the right is fritillaria.  It smells just like skunk.  (I'll post pics when it blooms - probably toward the end of April.)


Today after watching and watching, we finally saw our first daffodil open.

This was taken in the early morning, and it's not open yet.  The sad part of this picture is the plants to the left.  During the night one of our resident critters ate the tulips to the ground.  We thought we could distract critters by surrounding the tulips with daffodils, which no one eats.  They didn't either - they just ignored the daffs and went for the very tasty tulips.

It finally opened later in the day.

But the tulips are still eaten.

D has spent the rest of the day fencing the gardens.  

Let's hope it was not baby creatures that can get through the holes.

The strawberries have started poking through the mulch.

 I am really ready for fresh strawberries!

 Yesterday, in the hedgerow, we discovered violets.  We don't remember them from last year!

That's it for the first week in April, 2020, in the little house in the city.

Spring Begins

We have had a warmer than normal February and March, and it's time to look for the first signs of spring.

 Here is the first crocus.  Always a happy sign of new beginnings.

The snowdrops are on the north side of a boulder, so they are never our first flower.

It's a beautiful day to let the girls (and one boy) out to play.

They love scratching in the leaf litter.

D has started apple trees from apple seeds.

It's a gamble.  Who knows what they will be like.  

Early Spring Flowers

Finally we have a few spring flowers.

This has brought out the honeybees.

They have been scarce in recent years, so we're glad to see them!

Alas, the snowdrops sit on the north side of a boulder.  They have just appeared.

First Crocus

Finally - our first crocus on April 12, 2014.

Spring has taken quite a while to get here this year.  We're delighted to see the first signs of spring.

First Spring Flowers 2013

April 1 saw the first snowdrops.
(Last year was March 25!)
 '
It feels like a very late spring,
but the flowers are welcome.