Good morning and welcome to a substitute "spring break" edition of Saturday Morning Garden Blogging. While Frankenoid and family are in NYC for their spring break, spring is breaking out here in Northeast Ohio ... finally! I’ve been counting down to spring since the first snowfall last autumn, so it seems like it’s taken for-freakin’-ever to get here. But now it’s been official for 25 hours and 16 minutes – spring is here!
The weather cleared up and warmed up earlier this week. As a result, signs of life started popping up everywhere.
It started on Sunday morning with a single, slightly muddy snowdrop:
Followed by crocuses that I actually managed to keep safe from the hungry squirrels and runny babbits this year:
"Oh, hai. We couldn’t nom ur crocuses, so we nommed ur main cable line instead. Git 'er dun! We surrounds u! Hee hee."
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Looking harder for more signs of life, I pulled away some of last year's leftover leaves and found some sedum, hellebore buds and a few fiddleheads:
Even the bugs are starting to show up:
Some little blue flower (scilla?) is also blooming, and early daffodils are in bud. The grass is even starting to green up. Hallelujah, spring is here!
One disappointing aspect of the week, though, was going to my neighborhood - and favorite - garden center and discovering it was gone. Ack! I will miss it, but perhaps all is not lost. Their website says that it was sold to another local garden center. There were some construction workers on the property when I was there, but it was too early in the process to get an idea what they might be doing to it or when it might reopen. I hope the new business is as quaint and diverse as the last one, but if the new owners simply clone the place they already have, it won't be. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.
That’s what’s "spring breaking" here. What’s breaking out in your gardens?
P.S.: Gratuitous crocus slideshow