Spring inventory, part I

For years, I kept a calendar with the first blooming dates of the flowers I saw each year. The dates usually matched to within a week or two. These days, I've abandoned the calendars and instead, check back through the blog archives.

This year, we seem to be a bit later than last year, even later than the year before. I went out this afternoon to take this spring's inventory in the garden.

Blue bacopa and lobelia. I bought these already blooming, so they don't count.

Perennial candytuft. I bought the seedlings this year. This plant is the first to bloom.

Dutchman's breeches. This is a 3-year-old plant, growing well. It has been flowering for a couple of weeks.

Seedling lupins in a tray, covered with chicken wire to keep the sparrows from uprooting them. I have room for two or three plants. I'll have to find new homes for the rest.

Perennial pansy; another purchase this year.

I fell in love with this pink primula in the perennial section at the nursery.  I hope it likes it here.

This tiny speckled violet has been growing slowly here for about 5 years. This year, the plants are much bigger than ever before, and loaded with tiny buds, like this one. 

Multi-level volunteerism: a few years back, I planted some native fringe-cup, which bloomed nicely that year, then disappeared. I re-used the soil the third year, to plant heather. This spring, I transplanted the heather to a better location and found the fringe-cup thriving behind it. And underneath that, a tiny fern was competing with moss; I transplanted those to a separate container. The fern is unrolling new fronds now, the moss is growing nicely, and there are more new residents:

A liverwort, one of two, still only a couple of inches across. I'm looking forward to watching it develop.

It had started to rain, a light sprinkle, as soon as I went out to the garden, and now it was beginning to pour. The rest of the inventory, and then the comparison with previous years, would have to wait.

Of course, as soon as I was inside and had dried the camera and hung up my wet jacket (in that order; first things first), the rain stopped, and the sun came out. I stayed in. I didn't trust the weather to stay put.

Through the window, after the ground had dried; a grey squirrel watching me watching her.

Tomorrow (well, later today), I'll be in Chilliwack, coming back through farm country, rain or shine.