More Blooms than Last Year for GBBD

A number of us gardeners have declared it is spring.  Here in zone 5b SE Nebraska, our temperatures have been 20 degrees above normal this week, and now, my garden has also declared it is spring.  I looked back at last year's March, and found we really are about a week ahead of last year.  In fact, some of the crocuses have finished blooming already.  This is one of them, that I got a photo of last week.

I am pleased to have more blooms than last year for this Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, hosted by Carol, of May Dreams Gardens.  I started at the front of the house, and went around the yard.

I wish I could do a better job keeping track of tags, or just remembering the names of my plants.  There are 2 hellebores that I didn't get moved out of the south facing planter after the tree was cut down.  They both survived the summer sun, and it looks like only one of the ones I moved survived, so I will just keep these in place, and figure out what to plant that will give them some shade in the summer.

I also have a clump of daffodils on each side of the front planter.

I think this is Helleborus orientalis.

These are the pansies our 4 year old grandson picked out, based on the red one.  His almost one year old brother ended up with the first red flower in his hand while watching his big brother plant them, and I was pleased that he did not get upset.

I am pleased that several of the pasque flowers I planted last year are up and blooming.  The ones that are more established will be blooming soon, too.

I have been doing lots of yard walks, and greeting lots of plants out loud.  I was very excited to come across these little beauties a couple days ago.  I sure carried on, telling them how sweet they are.  I did have the tag near them.  They are liverleaf, Hepatica acutiloba.  So far, two of the three are up, and there are no leaves yet.

This is the last crocus clump to bloom.

This is the only hellebore that seems to have survived after being moved last spring.

I planted several hellebores in the east front yard bed.  A couple are not yet blooming. I sure like this one.

This one looks like the picture on the 'Yellow Lady' that I have next to the house, which does not look like it.

This is the 'Yellow Lady'.

There are some little buds on the Virginia Bluebells.

Next to the garbage cans, is our son's favorite of our hellebores.  I kept forgetting to move the taller dead foliage that was hiding it to see how it was doing, until our son asked about it.  I went ahead and cut the grass off of it, and cut back the other dead plants that were around it, and it looks very happy.

I love hellebores!

(Added 3/15:  I was looking at photos from last year to try to figure out what a few plants are, and came across this photo of the above hellebore.  I need to go look at last year's posts, but I'm pretty sure I had mentioned that this clump was a different color the previous year, its first year blooming.  Have you had any experience like that? Oops, the yellow photo must have been from 2010, because I went back and found a photo in a post from last year, and saw where I had said it was yellow the year before.)

Here's the photo from 2010:

Here it is last year, still lighter than this year:

I have been having so much fun raking the leaves out of the flower beds, and discovering what all is coming up!  Larry even helped me Wednesday, although, it started out a bit dicey.  He thought I should have finished cutting everything back before asking him to help rake.  He didn't like it when I asked him to be careful of a certain plant.  He pointed out to me that where I like "this stuff" and find it fun, to him it is a chore.  We smoothed things out, and he did a great job making trips to the compost pile with the leaves and such.  I even got some potatoes and onions planted.   The lettuce and such that I planted in January are coming up.  Yippee!

I hope spring comes your way soon, if it hasn't yet.  Folks at church were saying it could snow yet.  I don't think it will, and I hope I am right.