The Daily DuBrule

My snow crocus 'Cream Beauty' are starting to emerge. The early pollinators love these.

Hamamelis vernalis 'Purpurea' is in bloom today

Iris histrioides 'Katherine Hodgkin' is an amazing early iris planted from bulbs in the fall. I took this picture last February. I wonder when it will bloom this year?

Day11

I gardened for many hours yesterday. I am continuing to cut down wild, native perennials in my back shrub border. I also weeded, words I have never uttered in January before. Ground ivy, the bane of my garden life, is everywhere and comes out in large sheets right now. 

Every half hour I made the rounds of my garden, looking to see how much my early spring blooming bulbs had grown. The snow crocuses appeared and grew 1/4" during the afternoon. Snowdrops were in bud and stayed that way. On the south side of my house, I peaked under my evergreen boughs to see that the Iris reticulata are still in tight bud. The boughs were put on in early January when I first noticed them poking up out of the ground. I am trying to keep the hot sun off of them to stop them from flowering and then freezing.

I picked the remaining dried leaves off off of my purple witch hazel as it was starting to flower! The pussywillows are cracking and I was tempted to bring in an armload of forsythia to force. It's been quite a month.

I remember a few years ago when we had an exceptionally warm winter and insanely early spring, I couldn't stop exclaiming every time I looked out the window how "scary" it was to see things blooming so out of synch. It got to the point that my husband, who is not a gardener AT ALL, finally said to me one day "I refuse to join you on the deck for a glass of wine unless you promise me that you won't be giving me the doom and gloom report about plants blooming at the wrong time". It made me realize two things. One, I am totally tuned into when plants are supposed to bloom. I guess that is expected since I wrote a book about it! Second, I take what is happening in nature to heart and worry about it. Oh silly me. I can't control what happens. I might as well just get out there and enjoy it. Which is exactly what I did yesterday and plan on doing again today!

What's blooming in YOUR garden now?