The Plants Know...

The weather has been undecided, but the plants know it's spring.  Just since Friday, lots more blooms have opened.  Each yard walk yields discoveries of more plants coming up, new growth on others, and buds and blooms.  Oh, this is my favorite time of year, and we are finally having some warm days!

I am linking this post to Carol, of May Dreams Gardens' Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, which is the fifteenth of every month, and to Tootsie, of Tootsie Time's Flaunt your Flowers/Fertilizer Friday.  I tried not to include the flowers I've shown already, but a few sneaked their way in.

Soon, the pasque flowers will become showy, fuzzy seed heads to enjoy.

The first creeping phlox blooms are peeking out.

The candytuft blooms are doing the same.

The Virginia bluebells are opening up, too.

I'm not good about saving tags and remembering what varieties I have of tulips and such.  I'll have to look at last year's posts to see if I had some of the names then.  This is the second or third season for these.  I have 2 clumps of them.

This lovage bloom is on a shorter stem than the rest will be.

I love leopard's bane, but it doesn't live many seasons for me.  Only one of the two I planted last year is up, and it just has one flower and one bud so far.

The first daffodils to bloom are about spent, but there are still some looking good.  Now I have to wait for the leaves to fade before cutting them back.

The tulips in the next 2 photos were given to me by a couple friends a few years ago.  I don't remember when there started being 2 kinds in this one spot.  I already showed the yellow ones they gave me that are in the same bed.

There is a carpet of blue blooms in the front of my garden across the street, and a few lovely dandelions.  I tried to find the name of the blue weed, and thought maybe it was henbit, but I don't think that's right.

I planted some of these violas in a pot, but also put some in the ground, hoping they will reseed.

Prairie smoke geums are blooming.  They will look even better when the seed heads form.

Bleeding heart is one of my favorite spring bloomers.

These tulips may have been planted by my mother-in-law.

I was sad when B&B Greenhouse told me Spooky dinathus seeds would no longer be available, and that they don't come true from seeds.  They sold them as 6 pack annuals, even though they frequently live through the winter.  The other day, when I was at Earl May Garden Center, I saw they were selling them as perennials.  I also noticed this, which I'm guessing came from the line of Spooky.  I chose it because I loved the color and scent of it.  (Added 4/15:  This is called 'Rainbow Loveliness' Lilac Pinks Dianthus.  The flowers are a touch smaller than 'Spooky'.)

This hellebore is on the east side of the shed, and has not been in the blog yet.  The color of the outside of it is richer than the others, and has some pretty reddish veining that doesn't show up well in a photo.  It is just starting to bloom.

These photos were taken April 12.  The double pink tulips that were so pretty their first year of bloom last April, looked to be white this year.  When I checked today (4/13), there was a little pink on the inside of the bloom, but it was pink through and through last year.  Oh, well, this one is still pretty.  Hopefully, the others will be, too.

I went ahead and took a photo of the same flower as above today (4/14).

The shorter money plant is blooming, and today, the buds on the larger plants are also opening.

Here's a view of the new bed that was started last summer when they resurfaced the street.  It looks like everything I planted survived the winter.  The frilly tulips are kind of weird, but pretty cool.  I put all these stakes and labels in the area when we had our kitchen remodeled because I saw 2 different delivery people walking though the planting area instead of using the path or sidewalk when we had our kitchen remodeled.  I think I'll leave them there until the plants get larger so no one else walks on them.

A closer view of some of the tulips:

One of my perennial geraniums is blooming.  When I was looking for the name of the weeds blooming with the dandelion, I found out perennial geraniums are considered weeds in some places.  I have several kinds, and enjoy them all.  One does spread more aggressively than the others. 

My son and daughter-in-law gave me this lamium a few years ago.  I like to give clumps of it away too, to keep it in check.

The violets are ready to munch on.  I have eaten a couple, and they were nice and sweet.

Larry saw this volunteer viola in the grass next to the wash tubs where I grow pansies and violas in wash tubs.  I hope your spring is going well!