Sunday, March 11

The Big Thaw


Today was a gorgeous late winter day: Mid 40s, blue skies, sunshine. The snow that did not melt yesterday had disappeared by the time I got home from work today, save the large drift by my back fence. It is still a good 15 inches tall, mostly because that area is so dark in winter due to the severe angle of the sun.

I grabbed my camera and went out to see what the thaw would reveal about my plants. Here was the bergenia, flat as a pancake on Friday when I first saw it but slowly recovering from the inner to the outer leaves. It's such a great color that even when it looks terrible like this, it still looks good to me.

And the small sprouts of variegated Jacob's Ladder that had bravely emerged in early January are still there, looking none the worse for their snowy hibernation. Skeletons of bronze fennel are still amazingly upright by the side of the porch, and the silver leaves of sage are glowing beside the reddish leaf buds of 'Voodoo' sedum.

The plant spotting that I was most excited about eluded me photographically... but all three of my purple clover (trifolium repens var. atropurpureum) are coming back! I think that they must have heard me grumble that I'd tried them for two years now and I wasn't going to replant them in 2007. Who says threats don't work on plants?!

Thanks to everyone who has commented on the previous post about gardening phases. I haven't had time to get mine all together yet, but I also wanted to give more people time to chime in before I post. Reading your comments has been lots of fun...

5 comments:

Kylee Baumle said...

Late summer day, eh? ;-)

My variegated Jacob's Ladder looks like it made it through the winter, too, even though it was the first in my garden and didn't do all that well this past summer.

And it's amazing, your experience with the trifolium. I planted that about three years ago, it threatened to overtake everything around it and I ripped it out. Don't you know, it started coming back up IN THE GRASS around the raised bed where it was! Invasive here! (But I do think it's very pretty.)

By the way, did you know OG defeated WT in the basketball tournament a few weeks ago? Darn! ;-)

Unknown said...

Kylee, LOL! You think that typo might have been wishful thinking?! *grin* I did see that about OG and WT... OG did their usual (this year) self-destruction routine this weekend, though.

Hmm. Since the trifolium took over there, I wonder if it needs more moisture than I can give it? It's so sandy here--very hard for this clay-bred girl to get used to!

David (Snappy) said...

Thanks for the comment.I can get some of my gardening fix from reading about other peoples and getting back into the blogosphere.An online community of green thumbs as you say there!
Coco is a tomato taster?Why do dogs like green beans?She is so cute lying upside down on the sofa :)

Unknown said...

Snappy, it's so good to see you back! I don't know why she likes green beans or tomatoes, but I regularly catch her with her nose in both. And she tends to sleep upside down a lot--cute, but she doesn't look comfy at all, does she?

Carol Michel said...

I just love the first days of spring when we can get out into the garden and see what's going on! Love the Bergenia, very pretty color!

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