i am about to blog about the first signs of spring because on sunday the weather was kind of nice and i spent a few hours on my garden plot, clearing out last year's debris and checking what is starting to sprout after winter. however, right now it's snowing. oh, april...
here's how things looked on sunday. not very green yet, but the trees were in the bud, which is one of my favourite spring things, that fuzzy stage, and some early bloomers like scilla and corydalis were also just about to burst. we call corydalis lark's spur, by the way, and larkspur is cockspur i think.
lady's mantle, alchemilla, is always one of the first to sprout. this is either a. mollis from a nursery originally, or the one that grows in the wild at the forest home. can't remember. most likely the latter, but i need to transplant the former, a lot of it, to my plot. it's right by the main pathway so i want to make a (very low) 'hedge' with plants that are durable and don't mind being stepped on occasionally. hyssop i've already planted last year, it grows nice and bushy when trimmed early on.
these are some of the bulbs i actually managed to plant last fall, and i'm kind of lousy with labels, so not sure what they are... thought they were scillas at first but the wide leaves threw me. we'll wait and see. star of bethlehem is a possibility.
my bad luck with snowdrops continues, they are a no-show at the plot as well. voles probably dig the bulbs. pun intended. but my horseradish survived, rhubarb is looking good, so are the various raspberry saplings and even the white echinacea might be alive. valerian is doing well, and primula veris was also already making a rosette of baby leaves. once tjis fresh winter clears, dandelion and nettle might be pickable size.
it's exciting to get to start gardening again, but spring is so late and i've had to sow very sparingly indoors so i don't get a bunch of lanky, pale seedlings. somehow it's also april, and i still haven't started tomatoes, which were a february job. oops. maybe i'll sow a few and hope for an indian summer...
