I currently have 3 clumps of daffodils blooming, but I have no idea of what types they are. When I chose them something like 20 years ago, I was looking for color and form that I liked, but relatively inexpensive. Now I typically look for early to mid season flowers because our spring is so short that later season flowers bloom when it is usually quite warm and they tend to fade really quickly.

Southern Connecticut- 7a...

Tiny Tuff Stuff hydrangea leafing next to heuchera (forget the variety):

Hyacinth:

Bleeding heart just starting to flower:

And the earliest we’ve ever seen dandelions!

I had posted this in the March thread but I'm moving it here.

April 10 Update

Forsythia is blooming (I don't have a good picture but I think everyone knows what it looks like). It's a good marker for early planting operations.

The big dicentra 'Gold Heart' continues to sprout.

I thought I'd lost a second one I planted last year and wasn't sure exactly where it was, so I planted a lily-flowered tulip (Fur Elise) too close to it. They look good together though. I don't know how this will turn out but I'm hoping the tulip will go dormant and the dicentra will continue on.

Rhododendron 'Mary Fleming' is beginning to bloom.

The euonymus patch now includes scilla 'Spring Beauty' and geranium 'Ingwersen's Variety.'

Lots of daffodils still:

Toby the First

Jetfire

Lemon Glow

And another pieris, Little Heath, is blooming.

And the hellebore 'Gold Finch' continues to bloom.

There are still some chilly nights and the last frost date is yet to come.

Claire

One of the pleasures of this ongoing series is seeing what is in others’ gardens and how they differ. Brdl, yours is so very far ahead of mine, at least a month earlier! The reminder that spring really is here is wonderful. And Claire, yours looks about midpoint between NH and CT. My perennials haven’t started sprouting yet. I did see a blooming forsythia in town this week, but in my cold spot, my forsythia hasn’t started opening buds yet. I am sort of glad since we are scheduled for high winds in the next day and I think they would look battered by the storm’s end.

Seeing he dandelion photo reminded me that for many families here in my little town when people my age were kids, the kids were allowed to run around barefoot once the dandelions started blooming. So of course my DH and his brothers had south-facing walls they would check since the dandelions bloomed there first so they could bring their mom an open dandelion.

Here are a few pics from right now. Not much is up. The garden is mostly brown, but at least the oak leaves are raked.

The lilies are up. Pardon the blue tarp down near the house. Those are compost piles behind the chairs, and my new woodland path is in the foreground.

Here's another image of that woodland path. I cut it yesterday. As the undergrowth comes up I'll have quite a lot of work getting rid of the poison ivy and brambles. I actually look forward to that.

More pictures. Hostas are coming up, and the creeping jenny is changing to yellow.

Nice woodsy property, liquidfeet! That woodland path will be a joy when summer comes.

Claire

Babs - love your patch of daffodils - wow - so many flowers!

brdrl - you are ahead of me too. I have hydrangea that are just starting to open tiny little leaves. Hyacinths are up but not fully open. Bleeding heart are just showing themselves.

Claire - just love the big flowers on your 'Gold Finch'. I bought a black hellebore for the first time last year. It's blooming and I love the color with the lighter hellebores. Mine has small flowers though. I'm now on a search for a large black bloom on a Hellebore.

I am so enjoying the wind today! I have my bedroom window all the way open and I can see my front Maple and the huge limbs just rocking and swaying. The air is warm and the sound of the wind is musical. So far it's pretty windy, but nothing scary. We haven't had a downpour yet either. As long as our power doesn't go out, I'll continue to enjoy it. [g]

I need to take a few more photos again - maybe tomorrow.

I have perennials starting to show. Heuchera, Lamium, Poppies, Cranesbill, Salvias, Asters, Dianthus. I was surprised to see Lilies already pushing up. And I've suddenly got a patch where I had just a couple of lilies.

I have two daffodils, that I swear I must have planted 5 years ago, that are just now opening and one is so pretty. Has a very large orange trumpet...wide not long. And there's a good clump of them. I looked them up on my inventory and the name is 'Sound'. Oddly I planted 20 of them and this is the first I'm seeing them. [g]

Thanks to all for comments and photos. I am delighted that discussions are picking up again.

Lovely overviews of your garden, liquidfeet. Thanks for sharing. I love it when folks share new projects and works in progress and compost arrangements and all the other work that goes into gardening along with the pretty flowers and foliage. It looks like you have a beautiful spot, and I really like that long view down to the house.

So nice to see all these flowers and sprouts. Like PM2, I tend to prefer the wider bells like Claire’s Lemon Glow, and look for those in particular, but I do have some Jetfire whose bright orange trumpets really glow.

Today when I went to a local garden shop to get edible prodded pea seeds, I was tempted by the hellebores, but at $25 each, they were a bit steep for my taste. They never look as good as Claire’s in my garden, although I have tried 3 different types from different sources over the years.

@prairiemoon2 z6b MA, I'm in MA too. North shore of Boston. Are we by any chance neighbors?

@NHBabs z4b-5a NH, I ski in NH. Are you near a ski area? If I had my druthers, I'd move up there. But I'd have to take my garden with me.

@claireplymouth z6b coastal MA, wow so many MA folks here. We can learn from each other since we'll probably be growing similar plants. I've got 42 mature oaks shading my property, so I've got a shade garden. You?

I am between Concord and Laconia, just off of I-93, so within an hour of several ski areas. Unfortunately I injured a knee a number of years ago and haven’t been able to do alpine skiing since, though I still do Nordic. My husband was an avid skier, however, and since he was self employed, he skied midweek on a regular basis.

liquid feet - I am in suburban Boston, so not neighbors, no, maybe an hour away?. Love the North Shore, of course. Spent time there as a kid. I loved your photo of your Hostas. Mine haven't started showing above ground yet. I have a lot of part shade and grow a fair amount of shade plants. Look forward to seeing more photos of your garden once things start growing more.

Babs - I've bought plugs of Hellebores and in the past few years, there are some available at a local sale I attend, that are about $10. for a quart size. But on the whole they are fairly common varieties. It takes so long for them to get to a good size. Some of the self sown seedlings are still not even old enough to flower.

NHBabs: I've planted maybe four different types of hellebores over the years, but Gold Finch is the only one to do well here.

liquidfeet: I have many oaks, cedars, pines and wild cherries in my yard so I have a lot of shade too. The oaks were seriously damaged by the gypsy moth infestation a few years ago but they're recovering now. - but with bare branches looming overhead.

I like being surrounded by trees with a few open clearings for other plants. I also like the wildlife that comes with the trees.

Claire

Managed to get photos while it was still light out but missed the sunshine.

Jan Bos and not sure what the purple is....

City of Haarlem & Jan Bos

These were part of a miniature daffodil package at Scheepers 2 years ago... and on the lower Left - that's a lily already up quite a bit. I think it is the first lily to bloom and this is it's 2nd year. It's one of the fragrant candleabras. It was a single bulb/single stem last year, so I'm happy to see 3 stems.

And there is a young clematis just sticking it's head up to the front right of the daffodils.

Here is the daffodil I planted 5 years ago, that's just showing the first flower I've seen. 'Sound' - I seem to be fascinated. [g]

Viburnum carlesii ready to open any day....

@prairiemoon2 z6b MA, do your hyacinths bloom every year? If yes, do you fertilize them? Mine produced smaller and weaker blooms year after year, then I threw them away. So disappointing. I love hyacinths.

This is a gold leaved aquilegia. I was going to take a photo of the dark leaved for contrast, but didn't get to it.

The black bloom on the Hellebore I think I just bought it last year or the year before. Wish I had started buying the black Hellebores a lot sooner. That and more Galanthus and Scilla. I could have had a yard full of them by now.

liquid feet - My husband is not a devoted gardener, but he helps out and the one thing I discovered that he actually does appreciate about the garden - fragrance. So I make every opportunity to keep adding fragrant plants.

We love hyacinths too. I don't normally fertilize but this year I might. We had so little rain or snow last winter, less than 3 inches of precipitation - that I find many plants are not as vigorous as they normally are. I lost a lot of foxgloves over the winter. I just keep buying hyacinths. Oh, and late winter, we normally end up buying a potted hyacinth at the supermarket for fragrance in the house and when they are done, I plant them in the yard and they come back for me. That's how I've gotten quite a few of mine. I also order from Scheepers.

Last year, I lifted mine and replanted and this year I have a lot more. There were so many more bulbs than I ever expected to find, that I'll probably try to do that every year if I can. For the most part, I save them to plant along the front walkway so we can really appreciate the fragrance as long as possible.

Prairiemoon, love that black hellebore. Any idea of the variety?

Nekobus - I bought that at a local plant sale from another gardener. But there was a plant list from that sale and I found my notes that suggest she was selling the Wedding Series Hellebores. I know the black in that series is 'Dark and Handsome'. That would be my best guess.

Has anyone heard a forecast, predicting 4 cold mornings in a row, 32, 27, 31, 31?

If that is the case, would anyone be planning on covering anything?

Oh, I'm so excited. I've been trying to identify the all white daffodil in my photo above and I just realized that I think it is 'Empress of Ireland'! That's an heirloom from an Irish breeder and it's not one that usually naturalizes. They score them on a 1-5 scale of whether they spread and this variety only gets a #2. I thought it had disappeared.

Here is what I found on it....

"Another is ‘Empress of Ireland’, introduced by the brilliant Northern Irish daffodil breeder, Guy Wilson, in 1950. Like many of Wilson’s other introductions, this award-winning Irish trumpet daffodil – his personal favourite of all the daffodils that he bred – is notable for the pale, elegant beauty of its flowers."

I can't remember how I ended up with these.

PM2, I always figure that anything perennial that is up is on its own by now. The only plants I have that are damaged by late frost are the flowers on Magnolias occasionally, and one year the unfolding leaves of the native beeches were zapped.

I don’t plant tender annuals until threat of frost is past.

I guess you are correct, nothing is going to be killed by cold weather, although some years with late cold nights some of the bulbs can end up looking pretty tattered. I used to run out there with 5 gallon buckets and lots of other things like a sheet - to cover as much as I could, but it's not a pleasant task and in following years, I've skipped that. I don't remember getting as low as 27F but - maybe we did and I don't remember. I guess once the ground is warm enough for them. they can tolerate a lot. You're right. Thanks

I'm surprised in your zone that you can grow Magnolia without losing a lot of the blooms every spring. Do you grow a special variety?

I did that with sunflower seedlings last year...I replanted 3x and the little buggers kept ripping them all out. I love cayenne pepper.

Pretty Magnolia tree and you have so many Hostas! Beautiful!

PM2, I grow start Magnolia and Leonard Messel, both of which bloom a bit later and are quite hardy., probably to zone 4.

That's good to know. I had to look them up, they're very pretty. :-). I love plant material that is hardy to the lower zones. Why set yourself up for disappointment? I try to keep that in mind when I am adding to the garden. I rarely buy anything that is hardy only to zone 6. I have two arborvitae that stay in outdoor pots all year and they are hardy to zone 3.

Agree. I'm in Zone 6 and I only buy things good to zone 5.

Here is a second daffodil clump, the one ai am fairly certain is Jetfire like one of Claire’s.

Well, it's snowing on my blooming Japanese Magnolia. Here it is viewed through a wet window. The blossoms were just about to open.

Babs, your daffodils look very happy there. :-). What kind of soil do you have and is that in full sun?

LFeet - I got a kick out of that photo through the wet window. It's very artistic. I'm trying not to look out the window at all the daffodil flowers on the ground. [g]. We have leaves just opening on the trees and shrubs too. It will be 60 tomorrow.

My soil is glacial outwash, lake sediments, and in that spot fine sandy with some added organic matter. It is along an east facing white house wall, so morning sun and bright light the rest of the day.

LF, I hope that you magnolias come through OK. I passed one in Concord NH yesterday that had been frost damaged with touches of brown on the opening petals. It was just opening a bit too early, and we are in a mostly colder than usual spell right now with heavy frost to freezes still at my house, though Concord is warmer and 1-2 weeks ahead of me. Hopefully the air is warm enough that you don’t see damage!

Here are some close-ups. I took a walk to grab some photos. It's warming up and the snow is melting fast. Hey NHBabs, do you ski in northern NH? Anybody else? If so, we should get together sometime at Cannon or Bretton Woods..

My lilies and early hostas are drooping under the weight. We'll see if they stand back up tomorrow in the sun. New England weather keeps us on our toes, doesn't it?

How does one "thank" another person for posting on this forum? I don't see any button to click that says "thank this person," just "like" and "save."

Only the original poster in a thread can thank. But on a thread I didn’t start, I just like comments to acknowledge them, even when it is somewhat inappropriate, as above where I don’t actually like that your plants are sagging under the weight of the snow.

Thanks for the explanation!

I like things too, frequently. It's a nice acknowledgement that shows appreciation.

Due to a knee injury, I don’t downhill ski any more, but even when I still skied, no one ever did more than one run with me. ;>)

I didn’t learn to alpine ski as a kid because I was clutzy and because OH is mostly too flat and too warm, so learning when I was in my mid20s, I never totally got the hang of it. I was a slow skier, though I enjoyed it. So I would go to the ski area with others, but mostly skied on my own. (DH was a beautiful skier having started as a young kid since there was the community ski slope in his back yard, literally. Parents ran the tow. He raced in HS along with the other kids who learned to ski in his back yard.). http://www.nelsap.org/nh/canterbury.html

Two of my kids learned to ski through school and town programs, even though we are not located nearby to a ski area per se. They are both very good skiers and can handle the advanced trails, but as adults, they really don't find much opportunity to fit in any skiing. A couple of times a year at most and you can't keep your skills up doing that. When they ski with friends who are able to ski often, they find a gap.

I tried to learn after age 50 but a couple of times of that and I went back to tubing while everyone else was skiing. [g]. I do absolutely love being up on the mountain though.

I'm a ski instructor. I started at age 53. I'm 69 now. Just sayin'.

Started skiing or started teaching it at 53? DH was 61 but skied with two friends who were in their late 60s and early 70s.

Regardless, my knee doesn’t allow side pressure, so I cannot stop, kind of a prerequisite for skiing. I had to stop playing hockey also, and that was more of a bummer than the lack of skiing.

Very inspiring that you were able to start later in life, LG - any activity that you can continue to do is all to the good, as it just keeps you young. My Mom used to always say - 'Use it or Lose it'. :-)

But, it has to be hard to be active and then be side lined by an injury, Babs. I imagine it doesn't make gardening easier either. But I do remember that you do a little cross country skiing, so you keep your hand in as you can, I'm guessing. :-)

@NHBabs z4b-5a NH, I started skiing at 53, teaching a few years later. It can be done.

@ Nekobus - I wanted to correct the name of that Hellebore I gave you. I found a plant tag for it and it is actually 'Onyx Odyssey'. Sorry for the confusion.

Good to know. Thank you!

Not my garden, but every year this time I go looking for anemones blooming in the woods at the end of my block. This seems like a good year — I found lots of them yesterday, different clusters in whiter or pinker shades :

Also found a bunch of jack in the pulpits emerging on wet ground:

And what I think is corydalis?

And crab apples everywhere