OMG...I just came in from a walkabout and I have new leaves sprouting on my Hollyhocks! I was pulling the dried leaves away from the base of 4 of them and they allo have tiny new leaves coming from the base! I couldn't believe it myself so I pulled one and it is really a new leaf! I also have some violas that are still green from last fall. I hope they will stay that way and keep growing right where they left off!

Just came in from checking, and it looks like a bergenia has sprouted a new leaf, some sedums and lamium are greening up too. I noticed a 'purple sensation' allium up, as well as a few more daffodils and my fern leaf peony has shoots as well. So far that's it for new growth in the gardens.
I can hardly wait for more green to show up!!!

Laurie

Wooops! I posted it in Springish Signs, but I'll post it here too!

I have my Peony sprouts coming along nicely, and yesterday I saw that my Dianthus-Rubys Tuesday is GREEN....not black and dead! So I'm eager to see what it's going to do this spring :D

Nikki~

Geez,
Am I the only one who still has several feet of snow? Only the pathways are clear. Needless to say, nothing sprouting here.

north53, don't feel bad. I still have two feet of snow on most of my flowerbeds.

Syreeta

Trust me...I still have tons of snow on most of the yard, its just up against the house on the south side where it has really melted! Thats where my hollyhocks are. Anyway it got me motivated to get some stuff done outside...picked my first "crop" of dogberries today...LOL. Not the kind of harvest one looks forward to once the snow melts...eewwwwww

There's lots of green under the leaf mulch, but i haven't really noticed any new growth. Will have to get down and dirty tomorrow after work and really have a look. Well, i lied, there is one thing with new growth but i really can't remember what it is. I mentioned this somewhere, didn't i? The leaves look familiar - hah, with my luck it will be a weed! LOL

Mostly, bulbs are pushing up all over, wherever the gardens have bared off. My larger beds are still covered with lots of snow, but the ones around the house are mostly bare.

Michele, we have something more like "dog apples" in our yard! Yuck. Our dog never "goes" in the yard. Like the good boy that he is, he goes off in the bush somewhere to do his business. However, my son's dog seems to think our yard is his personal bathroom. I've shovelled up some already, but as the snow melts, there's more and more. We're going to have to do some training, i think!

The snow is almost entirely gone here. *YEAH* Only a thin crust in the deep shade, and it should be gone by the end of today (until the next dump hits...LOL!)

I have several purple columbine sporting new growth, as are my sedum, bergenia and hollyhocks. Buds are forming on my rose (hold off baby...I don't want you to get hit with a late frost...this is the first rose I've successfully overwintered...YEAH!!) as well as on the lilacs and mountain ash. My blue flax is also coming back happily, along with a few healthy looking volunteers. No peonies, lupins or bleeding hearts yet...and I haven't gotten to put in spring bulbs yet...maybe this fall. My early spring flowers are a carpet of forget-me-nots which I thought were an annual, but have turned out to be a freely self seeding perenial...aka more like a weed that doesn't die at winter, but I like it too much and can't bring myself to pull any of it. It's not greening up yet, but I usually have a nice carpet of blue by the end of April and on into mid/late May. I also have a pansy on 'roids that lived (and grew) under the leaf mulch and is now almost a foot across. Oh, and I have a couple of mystery sprouts too. I love spring!!

DH takes care of the 'dog apples' and since our dog does all his business in his run it's a relatively painless job (easy for me to say...I don't do it. Hehe!) Speaking of dogs...I think we're going to get a 2nd sometime this summer. Yeah puppies!

Verena

Discovered a few things showing their lovely green heads - achillea, tulips, iris, chives. A couple of heuchera plants that amaze me by showing up totally green through the snow. And, best of all, 5 or 6 strawberry plants poking up through the straw mulch.
Isn't spring great!
Margaret

Just tulips, iris and chives for me too. No flowers yet on the forsythia but it shouldn't be too long...

Went out and looked things over carefully last night, and found one crocus and one snowdrop blooming. Rhubard, tulips, chives and winter onions are all starting to show signs of life.
Connie

In bloom: a couple of crocus...snowdrops...one viola. 1 of our 4 hepaticas should open in a day or so.

Had a good look around this afternoon and found new growth on a lot of columbines and on the heucheras. There's green in the rudbeckia, but no new growth. Oh, and little fuzzy things are coming up where the meconopsis is! :) One lily has some growth, and, hmmm, there was something else... Oh well, can't remember at the moment. I dropped in at my daughter's after work and checked out her flower bed. Her tulips are just starting, but she has growth around her sedum and the lychnis.

I'm so anxious for the larger beds to bare off!

I was out there again yesterday and noticed that the scabiosa looks very green and some ground cover that I don't know the name of is coming back nicely. Some other plant -- a volunteer Lambs Ears?? -- looks fresh and green in the center. I'm also seeing lots of pansy and/or johnny-jump-up sprouts.

But I don't see my chives yet! Hmmm... now I'm wondering if it made it? Oh well, its still early!

Keeping my fingers crossed that this is it for snow, but hey, this IS Alberta! LOL

On a side note, we noticed yesterday when I was at a friend's house out on acerage that the Canada Geese are back! And I STILL haven't seen a robin in my yard in the city! Grrrrr. I'll just have to believe they are here! LOL

Ang

I remembered what the other thing was showing new growth in my garden - a primula!

I just came in from checking the gardens and most of the snow around the pond is gone now. And around it, I've noticed some new growth on the pulmonaria and sweet woodruff(I'm really happy to see the sweet woodruff, as I've killed it twice in another bed). Also the creeping thyme, armeria, rockcress and creeping speedwell are greening up(actually the rockcress is so green that it hardly looks like it went through a winter?). I can also report chives and rhubarb here too.

Aaaahhh, it's SO nice to be able to go outside and actually see something other than snow!

Laurie

More sprouts - lupines, daffodils, several daylilies
Still green - sweet william, pansies, something unknown I hope to have IDed this year, coral bells/heuchera (uuuh make that still purple), sweet woodruff (Laurie this stuff is super reliable for me, it likes shade and cool, once established you should have no problems).

I love spring!!!!!!!!!!

NS, that's good to hear about the sweet woodruff. Hopefully I've finally found a spot that it'll like.

More sprouts here too!

Chives (I was just looking in the wrong spot! LOL)
Glory of the Snow
Shasta Daisies

Yes, sure is nice to see things greening-up!

whooo-hooo! 2 more things coming up

Foxglove has a bit of tiny tiny new growth at the very base!

The other is either delphinium or huechera -- its still pretty tightly curled so I can't quite tell yet.

As the snow is disappearing there seems to be lots of green things......now as long as they stay green I will be happy.

I checked some of the bearded iris in the front beds yesterday......and some have rotted......but on the other hand some already have some little green leaves. Can someone explain why one rots and the one beside it is growing already?

Lots of crocus' blooming in the front bed, along with greens from the tulips, and purple sensation onions. There is also green snow in summer, lavender and allysum. Ohhhh ya...and tons of chick weed. LOL!

The new boxes that we put in last year, just uncovered and have crocus and something else popping up.....

Roses even the Mordens seem to have new buds right to the tips. The 3 new lilacs that were planted last year...all have buds. yeah!

The nanking cherry that was moved last summer...I was afraid that it wouldn't make it......has lots of buds on it. Another yeah! LOL!!!

I'm sure there is more...just can't remember now. oh and Primrose...in a couple of spots is looking nice and green.

Sierra

It's been raining here for the last 2-3 days and the sun is finally shining. The moisture has been great for the garden and there is soooo much stuff popping up! Oriental poppies, golden marguerites, phlox, sedum, columbine, rhubarb, heuchera, ladys mantle, sea holly, iris, strawberries, daylilies and tons more.

I think I might have a major challenge on my hands to identify all of last year's winter sown plants. Between the ones that have faded and the ones trampled by the herd of deer that passed through it is going to be tricky. I kept good records of my sowing and germination but when it came to planting out time it was all I could do to get everything in the ground before winter. Well actually not everything made it into the ground - I have quite a collection of pots buried in one corner of the garden. Good thing I have some super sleuth gardeners here to consult with... :-)

Hurray for spring!
Susan

I have crocus flowering. ThatÂs the little snow crocus.
Some of the primulas are showing growth.
Some of the narcissus and Siberian squill have started to show growth above the ground, no flowers yet.
I thought that the edelweiss had kicked the bucket but I am now seeing new growth from the bases.
The Lewisia cotyledon show some leaf scorch, but have come through except for one plant which rotted at the base.
The Morden roses seem to have green canes. I was told to expect them to die back to the ground each winter.
When I pulled away the mulch from the tree peonies, I received as bare root last fall; some had already broken their buds!
The winter was mild, the lowest temperatures I recall were about minus 22C.
Ian

A quick tour outside today showed lots of green on newly-bare penstemon, some growth on one iris, green alchemilla mollis, and so many tulips, daffodils and crocuses popping up! I went on a bulb-planting frenzy the past couple of falls, and it's paying off! I'm not really sure but i almost think some cynoglossum from last year is still green. Is that possible? Maybe it's something else but that's all i can think of offhand that was in that spot.

I looked around my yard tonight to see what has started and found some flax starting, also pasque flower. My roses are starting to show some swelling in the buds. Irises are showing some green along with some daylilies. I found a oriental poppy that didn't make it as the crown was rotten. No tulips, squills or grape hyacinths yet but a few more warm days and they will be up.

Cheers Al

Marcia,
Maybe you ended up with a perennial/biennial houndstongue (Cynoglossum) rather than an annual species?

They are definitely very hardy... Ummm, well, how shall I put this? They're actually an introduced weed all over North America. Definitely attractive...they grow in the disturbed area in the ravine near us (where unfortunately all the native vegetation was destroyed to put in lawn grass, and the natural springs were channelized into a storm sewer...sigh) and I always find the maroon/burgundy flowers quite unusual and attractive.

Well, if they're a weed, they'll definitely do well in my garden! LOL I'm pretty sure they're the annual kind. I'd sown the same kind of seed the year before and they didn't overwinter. Of course, this past winter was pretty mild, so that may be the reason. I have perennial annual dianthus, so why not cynoglossum? :)

It was a glorious day here..+17 and sunny..I spent the afternoon cleaning up 3 flowerbeds..I have delphs,autumn joy sedum,shasta daisies,day lilies,yarrow,lamium (dead nettle),flag iris,columbine and one lone foxy foxglove showing new growth in these beds..a quick look around and I see tulips up and crocus, I've spent most of my time transplanting etc the last few days that I'm sure I will find other sprouts popping up in other beds..I trimmed back all the dead stalks on the artic fire dianthus so now they are little green mounds. The sweet william is green and on its third year and a lot of pansies made it through the winter. It is as good as Christmas finding new shoots on favorite plants that are putting on a spring burst of growth.Love love love this time of year...savona

There's a few postings above about live growth of hardy roses. Perhaps this is only relevent to our local southern Alberta climate but I don't find any difference in the flowering time of our hardy roses (we have about 25 varieties) whether they die back to the ground or have above ground winter survival. Each variety flowers within a week or so it did previous years. I've had Hansas, John Cabots etc. have 4 ft long canes survive one year and nothing above ground the next, but the new growth catches up and the bloom time is the same.

The strait of belle ile between Quebec and New Foundland is full of winter ice with a few large ice bergs included, and it is snowing outside today. However yesterday I noticed that the monks hood ( which every household has on the lower north shore of Quebec and southern Labrador) has resurfaced and the single ice land poppy that was given to me by a friend from southern Labrador has already grown an inch. I am quite impressed by mother nature..This should be an interesting year if I can get some of my new seeds to sow. I am new at winter sowing ; have not seen anything sprouting in my containers yet. I hope they are not too wet.

Ricky

Yes Nature sure is amazing! We had 2 ft of snow still basically 2 weeks ago and now all the snow is gone and things are sprouting. It really is amazing!

I can report one more new sprout... peony! I even just checked yesterday and now I have one. Amazing how fast it goes.

I've been reading this with avid interest. Today, I have seen new growth on both my blue and yellow flax, columbine, Jacob's Ladder, erigeron 'Pink Jewel', what looks to be almost rampant growth around one of my Maltese Crosses, but not so much around the other, and salvia 'MayNight'.. Two of my roses have tiny new stems complete with leaves!

But what I'm really excited about is that I am seeing that at least some of what I planted in my raised planter last year survived! A miniature bleeding heart has two big fat pink shoots! My purple heuchera (sorry, in my excitement I'm forgetting all Latin names!) seems to be very much alive. I also have in there a miniature iris whose leaves are still green, and which 'seems' to to be very much alive to this newbie gardener! I don't see the same thing on two other irises - Siberian I think. So far I have not seen anything on my Brunnera, astilbes, or even daylilies, all also in the planter. All in all, very exciting!

Two crocuses are blooming today! They're in a spot i still can't reach very well, but there they are. :) This morning i noticed what may be Allium 'Purple Sensation' starting in one bed. I can't remember what it looked like when it sprouted last year. All three bearded irises have made it through the winter as well.

It's nice and mild here today but because of various and sundry things, i haven't had time to poke around outside too much. Tomorrow, i guess!

Mu Euphorbia polychroma Cushion Spurge was up yesterday. I was a bit worried about them because they started to sprout back in February but those sprouts plus more are all looking healthy and green.

So much is starting to green up. My Rose Daphne is nice and green but I still don't see anything on my Coreopsis 'Sweet Dreams'. Keeping my fingers crossed, yet, on that one. But it's really early, yet.

Shauna

It's been so crazy around here that I hadn't been able to get out for the last two days. I did get out this morning though. It had just finished raining and it smelled wonderful!! So I wandered around my flowerbeds with DH and found that there have been quite a few changes. My "purple-pansy-on-'roids" will have a fully open bloom by tomorrow...My first flower this spring. :-) My hollyhocks are coming back with great gusto, same with the chives. The blue flax I started from seed last year is growing amazingly fast. The delphiniums are up now...YEAH!! Shasta daisies, and daylilies have new growth, as do my sedums. Oh, and I have a couple little icelandic poppies coming up as well. It feels so springish I'd like to start digging, but I guess it's a little early for that...the ground's still too wet. Soon though...first on the list is transplanting the one long flowerbed into the garden and then making it bigger...and reorganizing the whole thing, and putting some saskatoons in the back...I can't wait...I almost picked up the shovel to start marking out the new outline. ;-) "Hubby, will you go inside and watch Hubert (our nickname for our son), I need to go play in the dirt!!"

Verena

I think I did more gardening today than all of August last year, LOL!
Lifted two peonies that I suspect were a little too deep... same for a couple of Iris sauveolens (wanted to make sure the rhizomes got some sunshine so as to promote blooming). Divided and shared with the neighbor a Siberian iris 'Butter and Eggs' that seemed to need it - old, hollow center, no blooms last year... or, gasp! have I been struck by the dreaded "non-blooming siberian iris virus" that we discussed at length a couple of years ago?!?!?
Anyway, lots of fun!

That rain sure was wonderful Verena! Especially since the sun came back out this after noon. Ahhh, I love spring rain!

My Monarda is definately back ... now to see how much it spread! LOL My neighbour that gave it to me gave me a big warning along with it! Said that I would be cursing her next summer because it spread like crazy for her! LOL, so what did I do? Happily said "Thank you" and planted it, LOL. Now I'm curious to see how invasive it is for me!

It looks like some type of perennial poppy is coming back but I have no idea what variety or type it is. Didn't bloom last year but it sure looks like that poppies leaves that my MIL has at her place.

The Iceland poppies are coming back full swing and the Dianthus (some type of fuschia coloured one ??name??) is totally greening-up.

I spent the afternoon outside too, mostly cutting back some of the perennials that i could reach. The white peony has a couple of new shoots, phlox Dave is starting too, some of the lilies have shoots - so much new growth! We haven't had the rain yet but we're supposed to get some tonight, and we need it to get rid of what's left of the snow. Several of my beds are still covered completely, and others have a little ways to go.

Mmmmm, i'm whipped! LOL Can hardly type! But, what fun!

abgardeneer,

Could you have divided the siberian iris, butter and sugar? I love siberian irises so I googled butter and eggs siberian iris to see what it looked like, cause if I liked it, then it would be on my wanted have-to-have list. All I came up with is Butter and Eggs...it is the common name for linaria vulgaris, the common toadflax, an invasive weed. Surely you wouldn't have shared that with your neighbor.

I also had trouble remembering the name of the siberian iris, butter and sugar. For years I knew it was wrong, but I would still think of it as 'butter and cream', being that the iris is a buttery color and I grew up making cream into butter every 2nd or 3rd Saturday. To me it seemed to make more sense to call it 'butter and cream' than 'butter and sugar'. But then, I didn't name it.

{{gwi:740369}}

Iris, Siberian, Butter and Sugar

Brenda

Brenda,
It's actually worse than that....my mind, that is, LOL! The iris is 'Floating Island", now that I look it up....DOH!
Lori

I am really surprised. I just put on my rubber boots to trudge through the snow to get to a flower bed that is newly exposed and found new sprouts! I'm not surprised to see daylilies, but there is new growth on silver mound artemesia and sea holly. Also some seedlings I have in sunken pots seem to have new growth, and tulips that seem to have been growing under the snow, and could I really have new growth on doronicum! Wow, all that snow and mild temps sure made a difference. I can see leaf buds forming on my shrubs. My new jacob ladders have sprouts too. Can you tell I'm excited?

Whoooo-hoooo north53, that's awesome! Gotta love spring-time!

New growth on so many things! Achillea, artemesia, phlox, chrystanthemum arcticum, polemonium, Shasta daisies - can't remember it all! :) And there's a heck of a lot of green things hiding under the leaf mulch. Does the old heart good to see all that green!

I haven't peeked under the mulch yet. Some of my scilla and grape hyacinth have buds up already - maybe blooms by tonight? Jacob's ladder, sweet rocket, daylilies and irises are all showing life in the back shade/sun patch, along with several things I haven't identified yet. The main veggie garden dried up enough that I could take a tour (moving carefully around the foot-deep cow tracks - DH forgot to close the gate last week). I found a nice little patch of young spinach that had wintered over. We should have fresh salad in a week or two - Yay! Strawberries are greening up and the little wild gooseberry my boys brought home for me has leaves opening at the bottom - it's always the first bush to leaf out.

I noticed today that my false spirea (Sorbaria) is leafing out already. It's always the first to do so, but I have seen a few tiny leaves on some of the rose bushes too. Last year the Sorbaria leafed out on April 11th, so we're right on schedule.

I noticed some little peony spikes today - can't remember the particular name of this one, but it was just planted last spring (i COULD look it up but i'm too lazy!). Most of the hollyhocks and lupins have climbed up out of the leaf mulch, and there are lots of crocuses blooming. :) Oh, and the tree peony has shoots as well! One of these years, it'll grow to more than a foot high! LOL

What a gorgeous day today. Did a little more clean up in the beds and found my baby's breath poking out, along with some 'Royal Paradise' lilies. Isn't it a little early for lilies? 'Autumn Joy' sedum also has a couple of inches of growth too.

Marcia, most of my peonies are sprouting too. And both of my tree peonies have leaf buds. Shall we hold our breath together till our tree peonies are taller than a foot???LOL
Actually, I'd be tickled pink if they ever reached a foot tall!!

Laurie

Well I put on the rubber boots and slogged through the swampy mess that is my back yard this afternoon. As the dogs ran rampant thru the mud of the flower beds AARRGGhhhhhhhh!
I pulled away more of the dead foliage left from the fall and found a bunch of stuff sprouting. My Violas are coming along nicely, the Heuchera WSed last year) is greening up nicely and has a bunch of new sprouts and of course the day lilies have a bunch of new sprouts. I have also discovered that the lavender I started by WSing last year has survived. How exciting is that. I rubbed it and it smells great!
And by the looks of the Achillea, that stuff must have been growing under the snow. Some of the new greenery is over 4" long!!

My largest bed is finally almost fully bared off. The achillea, doroconum and leopard's bane in there were growing under the snow too! In another garden, i started cutting back some veronica and found that some of the stems had new leaves forming on them. There's no new growth on any of the dayliles, but some still have green near their crown.

Laurie, the tree peony has two shoots a couple of inches high. I have to pull some grass around it to see if there are any more hidden in there. :) I'm trying to remember if it even reached a foot high last year - maybe not quite. It didn't emerge for the longest time, though, and i thought it was a goner. So maybe there's hope this year!

My strawberries are sprouting. As I was uncovering them yesterday I found...one wireworm, one cutworm and 2 earthworms. Now there are no wireworm, no cutworm but I like the earthworms, so they are still alive.

Brenda (who is babyproofing her home today for the Easter celebration here tomorrow, and will have a little 10 month running around here all evening tomorrow. All plants...out to the greenhouse and up on window ledges!)