Pink violet

Tiny. Wild. Old Faithful; it comes back every year, blooming in a broken pot.

Perennial early violet.

These were blooming in the lawn in Delta. I transferred one clump to a pot, and there they thrived. Over the second winter, the ice cracked the pot open; the violets hung on, even with some of their roots in the air. Three years ago, I moved the broken pot with me to Campbell River, dropping shards as we went. The pot now provides the most tenuous of support and protection; the tiny flowers still appear with the first warmth of spring.

Old Faithful!

A spray of yellow buttons

In my shady garden.

Red and white columbine.

Last year, this plant produced two whole flowers. This year, it's loaded. That's the beauty of perennials; if they don't thrive this year, there's always next. With no work involved. (Weeding and watering and feeding and cultivating don't count as work; they're just an excuse to hang around outside and get my hands dirty.)

Hints of spring already

This afternoon was unseasonably warm, and not even raining, so I took the chance of doing a bit of gardening, intending mostly to cut out plants that had been killed by the sudden, extreme (for here) cold spell in December. Cutting down the first one, I found new green leaves sprouting at the base. The next was better still, with flower buds forming already. And the next ...

All I had to do was clean away dead leaves and stems, and the garden is a garden again.

Hellebore bud. This one, last year, was a deep purple. It may darken as it grows.

Of the evergreen perennials, the primulas and pachysandra are already in flower; the hellebores are well on the way. The sausage vine and the bergenia which had seemed to be dying are back to normal; the salal and heather, sweet William and, of course, the London Pride, don't seem to have noticed the crazy weather. A half-dead Epimedium that I transplanted last fall seems to have been invigorated by the chill; it's better now than it ever was.

And this was completely unexpected; an Italian parsley plant that I planted as an annual, didn't protect from the cold because it was due to die anyhow, and left exposed in the coldest part of the garden, barely lost a few stems and still fills its pot, still green.

The Dutchman's breeches are poking out of the soil, and the bare twigs of the hydrangea all boast a big bud at the tip.

All this makes me happy.

A hanging pot off in a corner, where I'd planted trailing nasturtiums and lobelia, and which had housed a volunteer fringe-cup a couple of years ago, was a complete mess, a tangle of old twigs, cedar droppings, and dead, crispy stems. I cleared it all out, and found the fringe-cup coming back underneath. The usually green leaves are red, probably because of the cold.

Fuzzy stems and leaves of the fringe-cup.

A closer look at the stem. A bug would call it spiky, not merely "fuzzy".

Japanese anemone

Anemone japonica or hupehensis, var Prince Henry

I bought this perennial about a month ago, and I'm really pleased with it. It stands about 2 feet tall, and is covered with flowers, more each day, even in September. It's sturdy; it never drooped under the weight of the storm the other day, nor did it lose any flowers.

It's supposed to naturalize and spread, but without becoming invasive. We'll see.

This flower has no petals; what looks like petals are really sepals.

And I love the round button in the centre.

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.