Wow, lucky you! But question ... are you near the Olympics and how is that lack of snowfall going to impact the games?

Natal, we're pretty close, just a one and a half hour ferry ride from Vancouver. Snow has been trucked in and now it is being flown in via helicopter from higher elevations. Quickly found this bit of info...

Annette

Here is a link that might be useful: Snow transported via Helicopter

Wow! The differences are amazing! Love the second set - I am soooo ready for spring. When do these usually bloom for you? Are they especially early this year? I noticed today that my roses have lots of new growth beginning to grow on them. :)

To determine if we'll have an early spring, instead of the groundhog, I usually go by Easter. It's not early this year, so I didn't think we'd get an early spring, but it looks like we might! Keeping my fingers crossed!

Annette - I am soooooo envious! It's just icy snow here, right now, but at least the sun is shining. I did slips of some mini-impatience last night, and also some of my apricot hibiscus, which I'd nearly killed. I need also to slip some royal pelargoniums later today. I'm off to Dollarama, to see what they might have there. I need some organizers for the fridge. Thanks for sharing, Annette.

Nancy.

Your first photo looks like helleborus foetidus, not snow drops.

Longwood Gardens in Pennsylvania has a lovely display of helleborus foetidus. In very early spring when little else is in bloom outdoors, the helleborus foetidus are blooming their heads off and you can hear the sound of happy bees enjoying them. Definitely a plant I'd like to add to my garden someday.

Lynda

Here is a link that might be useful: helleborus foetidus photos

Those are amazing Annette. Love your Helleborus! I have H. argutifolius but it has never bloomed. Might have to give some others a try though...

Your snowdrops are lovely too. I seem to remember that you have a collection of those. Which are your favorites? A magazine came awhile back that featured different cultivars- I fell in love with some of those double ones!

Same warm temps here. I spied snowdrops blooming down the street, in a raised bed. And a patch of my tulips, by the foundation of house, are poppin' up.
CMK

What a difference! Love those early blooms!

Cameron

Holly, I think we're about 3 weeks earlier then usual.

Linda, yes your right, that is H. foetidus "Wester Flisk" the first in the second lot of pics, I meant the first of the two snowdrop pictures I guess I should have said and further down.

Chris I have argutifolius too, once again it is lying flat on the ground, my fault I should have tied it back in the fall. How much sun does yours get, mine gets about 5 hours of sun and it blooms every year. I've got x hybridus seedlings popping up like hairs on a dog's back around one of the Royal Heritage strain, it's planted in gravely soil but not a single seedling around any of the others. A couple of the double flowering ones I bought last year are going to bloom, a pink and a white but my double black isn't :(.
I've had double snowdrops but they seem to die out on me. Might give them one more chance this fall, plant them in a different spot, see if that helps. I only have three different varieties of snowdrops, the one with the shiny green leaves I had for years before they bloomed or multiplied. Then all of a sudden they took off, go figure.

Annette

Annette - do you think your bright green broad-leaved snowdrop is Galanthus ikariae?

Certainly a big diff.
Every year I mean to order snow drops, but never seem to get it done. I know they will grow here as my son had some at one of his homes in the Houston area.
Last couple years we had drougth and this fall and winter lots of rain.
Mother used to have an expression. ""Some people would complain if you hung them with a new rope".

Well, that is I this year.

k

I love your photos! I wish that that particular first hellebore was easier for me to grow here. I don't seem to have the correct spot for it, it's beautiful. And your winter bulbs are so lovely. I've had a few early crocus blooming, but not much else. Most of the new camillias have had their blooms frozen off constantly, and one in the ground blooms BACKWARDS only, towards the wall! What is up with that?

My own hellebores in the shadier area are not happy. I think having pounds of gravel thrown on them and constant disturbance and then so much cold have worn thin. Replanting to commence as soon as I can. What a lovely groundcover they are.

I can't believe how many things are perky after all that snow. Today I awoke to another very, very heavy frost on everything. It has been a very weird year here. Drought abruptly ended with deluge, and the most cold and frosty weather I've ever encountered here yet. I kick myself for not digging up the dahlias....

Flora, I thought they might be G. ikariae, when I bought those first few bulbs back in the 60's they were in a bulk bin just labeled snowdrops.
I thought I was just buying the common ones, when these shiny green leaves came up the following year I thought to myself these don't look like snowdrops, good job I didn't shovel prune them LOL.
When they finally bloomed I went looking trying to identify them, I thought they looked very much like the ikariae in the book Shrubs by Roger Phillips and Martyn Rix so if you think they might be too, they probably are.

Glynis, this is the second H. foetidus I've had, the first one I had for 4 years and then it up and died. This one I've had for about 6 years, I haven't let it set seed maybe that's why I still have it. We'll see I want to collect seed this year, hope I don't lose it.
I have another little odd ball a girlfriend grew from seed she collected, it has small green flowers and blooms a little later, could be a cross or... I moved it last year so don't think it will bloom this year. When it does I'll post a pic on the Hellebore forum, see if I can get an identification.
I said I wasn't going to order any more Hellebore seed but I see Ashwood Nursery is now selling seed of their doubles, I'm weakening LOL.

LOL Kathy, "Some people would complain if you hung them with a new rope" I'm going to remember that one.
As far as winters go Vancouver is having the warmest winter in their recorded history so we on the island probably are too. Right now most years the ground would be frozen.

Thanks all for taking a look, I usually don't have anything to show at this time of year and when I finally do it's just old hat, I'm so far behind everyone else when things bloom.

Annette

Love those snowdrops! They look huge to what we can get to grow around here, providing of course the rabbits don't chomp them down.

My H. argutifolius is in way too much shade. When I first got it I decided to err on the side of caution and plant it in part shade micro-climate because I read conflicting reports on hardiness. It isn't doing anything there so I plan to move it first thing in spring to a nearly full sun situation. It is native to Corsica, so I don't think it will mind any...

I think I have caught your Helleborus fever Annette, lol. Just got a new Heronswood catalog the other day with some real beauties. Uh, oh. ;-)
CMK

Correction, Urrrghhh, I meant The book "Bulbs" by R.P & M.R. I pulled the first of their books on the shelf to make sure I spelled their names right.

Chris, do you feel another addiction coming on :o), most of mine are grown from seed from Ashwood Nursery, I didn't think I liked the doubles but saw one someone had in one of our parlor shows last spring, it was a beautiful dark but bright grape color with white stamens, I believe it was a Heronswood intro but from back before they moved.
Have you seen the new anemone centred ones, I think I like these more than the doubles. In the link below there's some drool worthy pics of hellebores.

Annette

Here is a link that might be useful: Ashwood

Annette, isn't that the way. You get the winter Olympics and have the warmest winter in history, lol.

Lovely pics Annette.

Libby has a lot flowering now, she's 80 or so miles south of me and about one zone higher.

Indeed I do. This includes flowering weeds. ;)
Talk about a mild winter, we've only had a couple of hard frosts.
I have a lots of cornflowers that grew over 'winter' and are now a foot high.

Libby

Lovely flower pics! I fully understand about this mild winter as we are in zone 3 up in the hinterland of BC and haven't had as much snow and are losing what we have quickly. Many bare patches altho, of course, nothing blooming yet but a few seeds have already sprouted. It will be interesting to see what the rest of the spring is like.