Many thanks as always to Carol at May Dreams Gardens for thinking up and hosting a monthly blooming show and tell.  I’m a little late to the Ides of March party but it’s a blow-out.  There are well over a hundred posts already and this month in particular is truly fascinating to compare notes on the start of spring.

Spring is just-just getting going here – the crocuses have opened in the last couple of days; the skunk cabbage are taking their time; the pussy willows are out; and I even spotted the very first and very most tiny daffodils (could it be ‘Bartley’?).  The adorable snow drops have been blooming for a little while now but we have such a pathetic display of them that I’m making some notes to remember to remedy that on the July bulb orders.  The hellebores didn’t fare too well this winter – we lost a couple of pretty ones.  The H. foetidus survived but the last snow beat them up a bit.  The Heaths made it through the snow and are still looking lovely – remember, if you plant some, their Barbara Streisand “best side” faces the sunny south.

(I want you to appreciate that for some of these pictures I had to actually lie down on the ground.  It may be one of Mother Nature’s best jokes that to get a good look at the rainy season’s first flowers, one must get down and dirty. Hover over for titles and click on for a larger image.)

The greenhouse is heating up and full of spring too.  Here are some of the blooming beauties indoors:

I’m not sure of which rosemary that is – it truly is a remarkably deep blue – can anyone provide an i.d.?  And we know that the Eomecon (a member of the poppy family) is “perfectly hardy” here (so says Ed from Opus Topiarium) but we have been torturing it in pots for a couple of years now.  Maybe this year we’ll get it in the ground.

Are you taking notes now for things to do (and buy) later?  — Did you lose anything this winter?