spring break!

We are off to the Big Island of Hawaii today, to experience the delights of hot lava, sulfur gas and plate lunch! The garden and this blog will have to get by without me for the next week. As you can see, the garden’s doing pretty well on its own anyway (ignore the weeds), and I’ll have at least one post lined up so the place won’t be completely deserted. I won’t be around to respond to comments, though, unless I stumble across a computer along the way.

But with any luck, I’ll have some great material when I get back!

In the garden: the crocuses are out!

Every year in Skagit County we slog into February feeling like spring will never come. It’s been windy and wet and cold for months, and we know perfectly well that summer won’t really get under way until July. But then in February, every year, there’s a spot of warm sunny weather. Just enough to get people out into their yards and start thinking about the possibility of spring.

The timing of our sunny weather often coincides with the blooming of the first round of crocus, letting the flowers open up wide to the sky. A good rainstorm will flatten them, but while the weather’s warm nothing is so jolly as a lawn spread with purple and yellow crocus. Soon it’ll start raining again, but by then we’ll have the daffodils, which can stand up to it.

In the garden: blue iris

This is iris reticulata “Harmony.” It’s only a few inches high, but that shot of clear blue in the garden at this time of year is just mind blowing. They don’t last long, either - a good rainstorm or one bite from a slug knocks the flowers right down - but it’s still worth it. I wish everyone had these in their yard, it would cheer things up enormously.

In the garden: freckles

All the hellebores are growing fast, but this is the first one to reach full open-ness. It’s also got the best freckles, by far. I was weeding last weekend and was very happy to see several hellebore seedlings putting up flower stalks - I can’t wait to see how they turn out.

The weather’s been extremely wet, but not too cold, so things are beginning to grow and bud. Spring is beginning to seem like a possibility!

In the garden: cyclamen coum

The cyclamen under the big cedar tree have finally opened. They seem to be one of the only plants that can survive in the dry dust between the tree roots, and they give a fantastic splash of color in late winter. I bought this one from Heronswood years ago, and it’s been spreading very, very gradually.

We spent this morning doing some much-needed garden cleanup, since it’ll probably snow again tonight. But for a moment, it felt like spring!

In the garden: snowdrops

It may still be winter, but the bulbs in the garden know spring is coming. There’s a small herd of snowdrops under our fir tree that have managed to survive poor conditions and the local stray cat community, and they’re just now opening.

In the garden: helleborus sternii

This the most subtle of the hellebores in my garden, but very elegant. The purple stems and glaucous leaves are the main attraction, but the flowers are nice when they show up. It does very well in a neglected corner of the yard in rather dry shade, and looks good when everything else is still flat and muddy.

In the garden: bamboo

Things are still pretty dull in the yard, but at least the bamboo on the deck is still vibrant - the yellow stalks really glow on a cloudy day (of which there have been plenty).

In the garden: almost hellebore season

The hellebores are putting up their flower stems - nothing quite open yet, though.

In the garden: one flower

Yellow is so cheery in the garden at this time of year. This primrose is in a pot under the back deck, pretty much ignored by me, but it keeps plugging away. Having it in a pot seems to keep the worst of the snails away - the primroses I have in the ground are all pretty tattered right now.