You are a bit ahead of me this year, Melissa. My yellow Lady Banks and General Schablikine and Madame Lombard have started. Also the spins. Not the others yet.

Oh, that Lady Banks❤ I wish I could grow it but I think it's not hardy here. My roses are far from blooming but I expect to see buds on my Mme Isaac Pereire in a few weeks. And maybe the Cantabrigiensis too. The temperature went below freezing last night, quite unusual for late April. It has been a cold spring. At least the spring bulbs are lasting for a while 😀

@MetteBee, my favorite of the two is 'Fruehlingsgold', but 'Fruehlingsduft' runs it a close second. I don't know how commonly grown these roses are in the U.S., but they're widely popular in Europe, is my impression.

Temperatures are well above freezing here, but it's gray and drizzly and not exactly balmy. People are walking around in coats and jackets and scarves.

Fabulous roses, Sheila. Your yellow Lady Banks is beautiful, very floriferous.

I have a few roses planted in beds against the house that have started to bloom - e.g. Ralph's Creeper, Peppermint Parfait, Sequoia Gold; the teas have started opening a bloom or two; and here and there a few other blooms are opening. But so far not much overall, not even Father Hugo. Lots of buds forming but they're not open yet.

Sheila your roses are ahead of mine for sure!

It's all I have so far. My white Lady Banks is just starting.

White Lady Banks is just starting.

Beautiful photos, peeps! @MetteBee, I LOVE that grouping of blue hyacinths! Can you tell us more about that? Do you have something growing with them that will take over for them when they stop blooming? O, I do SO want to get started seriously with companion planting,but I have to get my pot ghetto under control before I start a new major planting project.

Melissa, it seems like you are a bit ahead of us over here. The other day I saw that Hiawatha had a few open blooms-the first roses of the season. I'm a bit surprised; I tend to think of Clbg Old Blush as being the earliest.

Sheila - GOR-JUS!!!

I love when the buds have gotten plentiful and fat, the sepals starting to be forced open so you can see the color hiding inside...I walk around the garden thinking "open faster! open faster"....lol...can't wait

@User thank you! The blue hyacinths are a bit of a happy accident! But so lovely. I like them more when they have been in the ground a few years than the ones you buy in pots from Holland. They look more natural when they are not so "full".

I moved some roses (possible ID Great Western) 2 years ago and the ground they were in was full of bulbs, so I just distributed them among the roses. I am hoping that the roses will fill out and cover the area. Possible plants that will take over are some native herbs (hieracium aurantiacum) that are orange, so they don't exactly suit the roses! And some self seeded Digitalis. I am trying to go more wild (native) in the garden in general, so sometimes I just close my eyes to the clashing colours.

Digitalis is my go-to companion as they are so easy to grow :)

Bart, the dark side of gardening in the country in Italy is the critters that eat plants. Hyacinths are a popular snack, if I remember correctly back in the days when I grew them in an unprotected bed. Also tulips; and iris tubers are much loved by the porcupine. Nothing has bothered my English bluebells, grape hyacinths seem to do fairly well, crocus carry on, and all members of the Amaryllis family, narcissus, snowdrops, and snowflakes, are left in peace. The porcupine also eats with appetite the wild long-stemmed Ornithogalum (star of Bethlehem), making a mess of the area while doing so: it's an even bigger digger than the wild boars. The native wild erythronium (E. dens-canis) is left in peace. The porcupine gobbled up my lone colony of highly poisonous autumn colchicum, and lived.

I share MetteBee's liking for wild plants and the idea of allowing them to colonize the garden, though there's plenty of room to do more of this in my case. Lately I've been admiring the bugleweed in the woods and damp areas, for example. We have several kinds of attractive bedstraws, field sage coming on to bloom, and too many others to name. The sunny big garden is harder to do this kind of planting, and like bart, I have too much other work to have much time for herbaceous plants. It's best when they creep in on their own.

Beautiful, Sheila!