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I think my garden is two weeks ahead this year

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I can’t believe how well my garden is doing so far this Spring. We had a much warmer than usual March (that means above zero temps instead of -20 C!) and that seems to have put my garden ahead by at least two weeks.

The Crocuses are just about finished blooming in the backyard – although the ones in the shadier front lawn haven’t come up yet). The ones remaining in the back are wilted or just green leaves now. Here’s what they looked like about two weeks ago at their best:

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The raised garden beds have little green patches throughout – the tulips leaves are almost fully grown, as are the hyacinth leaves. Some of the hyacinths have started to develop buds and I expect that they’ll be blooming in a few days. The Glories of the Snow are up as well and most are in bloom. Actually a lot of my spring bulbs are producing leaves or showing signs of life, the roses are starting to leaf out as well. It’s certainly nice to see all the green leaves as well as spots with pink and blue flowers.

My Danfordia irises were up and blooming last weekend, but then we let the dog out in the yard and she trampled them. 🙁 She also ate a few of the Crocus flowers and leaves and gave us a bit of a scare late that night when she wouldn’t settle down. She kept trying to lie down in various areas of our living room but then she’d jump up again and change spots a minute later. This went on for over two hours. So for now we’re not letting her out in the yard – when she gets excited (seeing the new puppy next door) she tends to bit plants randomly … that’s not good when there are some toxic plants out there!

So far my garden beds are looking good. They still have cedar mulch on them from last year.  I did however spend some time tidying them up and pulling out oh maybe 100 tiny maple trees that had started growing in the still bare spots in the raised beds. With all the rain we’ve had in the past few days I’m sure I’ll have more to pull out this weekend.

How is your garden doing this Spring? Is it a week or two ahead because of warmer temps earlier in the year or is it behind?






Sunny days and Snowy days

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Here in Toronto it’s been snowing on and off for two days now, but we had a lovely Saturday.

It reached 14 Celsius – perfect weather for taking pictures of the flowers that were blooming and the new plants coming up out of the ground.

Chris and I spent a few hours on Saturday cleaning up the front garden and the planted boulevard.

It looked great … lots of new life and my roses all survived the winter as far as I can tell. Too bad everything’s covered in a light layer of snow right now!

Here’s what my now snow covered and likely wilting crocus’ looked like on Saturday …

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It was lovely to look out my Kitchen window and see all those flowers blooming in the grass. So pretty!

How’s your garden and for that matter, the weather in your area this week?

A little yard work

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I couldn’t stop myself … I couldn’t resist … On Monday I finally went outside and did some yard work! First Spring cleaning for the garden this year!

Of course I had to pick a rather cool day and naturally, as per usually, I didn’t go out during the afternoon when it would be warmer and brighter … nope, Chris and I waited until it was about 7 pm before deciding to go outside to take some pictures of the Crocus and other plants that we spotted coming up and that of course turned into what was supposed to be a short lawn raking session.

All in all we were outside for close to two hours and the temp fell to -1 Celsius (30 F) by the time we came back indoors tired and frozen!

Most of the leaves and dead grass has now been raked off the front and back lawns. There were a few areas, shady areas, where the ground was still quite hard and the leaves were a frozen mass stuck to the grass. LOL

We even started to take some of the leaves off of the garden beds. I was surprised at how many of our plants were growing! Now that we’re getting some rain and it’s above zero most of the time I expect to see a lot more green – perhaps by the weekend.

I discovered that the Sedum had little green nubs coming up, there were some tulip leaves, maybe some Grape hyacinth leaves, our two hydrangeas have leaf buds, and the Chives had doubled in size from when I first discovered them last week. I also think some of the German Iris leaves had started to come up and green as well. There’s so much life in the garden hidden under a thin layer of leaves.

Have you been out in your yard doing any Spring cleaning yet? Discovered any plants that you didn’t expect to be coming up yet?

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