It's looking up (literally).
Maple buds against snow dusted cedar.

Jane - what a cool picture! I'm trying to get up the energy to go outside and photograph my crocuses peeking thru the snow.

A few buds just beginning to open on my Pieris Mountain Fire:

I feel like I need a dope slap but I'm not sure if this is scilla or muscari, both of which I've scattered all over the place. It should be glaringly obvious once the flower bud opens up, but the foliage is confusing me.

Not exactly flowers, but there are fungi "blooming" on some pine logs I have as an informal fence.

And Hellebore Green Heron has settle in for a long show:

I still have snowdrops blooming and the crocuses are just coming up.

Claire

Crocus t. Roseus is fully open:

and that bulb that confused me is looking more and more like a scilla as the stem elongates.

Claire

Gorgeous mushroom photos Claire.

When I dropped DD at school this morning, I noticed that the daffodils and forsythia were in bloom there. Mine don't look like they are any where near blooming and we're only 3/4 mile away.

Claire, that first photo is art. Good capture. No pictures, but the daffodil buds are gaining weight and are about 6" tall while the tulips in a container are match point with the dicentra - up about an inch.

pixie_lou: I have a similar situation here with delayed blooming times. My street runs along a coastal bank and then turns inland. Daffodils and forsythia will be blooming happily about 1/4 of a mile away while everything just sits and waits here.

Claire

This morning, my yard was very purple! Hi, crocuses! I whatever you are, purply-pink shrub thing!

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wispfox - could that be some type of heather?

Between rainstorms, I went for a walk outside and was amazed at some of the things that have sprouted up.

My garlic is doing well

Hyacinths will be in bloom soon

I found a new color of reticulated iris - haven't seen this one in my garden before

I don't remember what this blue flower is called - but it has popped up in amongst a snow drop. Is this scilla? Or something else?

pixie-lou: Oh! Maybe! I vaguely recall someone saying it was. Yay, thank you!

I also have scilla, apparently! Had no idea what it was earlier today:

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pixie lou,

I think your little blue flower is a Chionodoxa = Glory of the snow. But wispfox, I think yours is a Scilla siberica.

Both such lovely and welcome little flowers!

Leslie

Thanks Leslie. Yes - Mine is chinodoxa. Now that you mention the name, I know that I've easily planted 100 of those bulbs in the yard. I also have Scilla in the yard, but it's not blooming yet. And I think it's in a different section.

There's lots of new growth on the perennials I grew from seed last year but for early color:

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No daffodil flowers here yet, just scilla, snowdrops and crocuses; and of course hellebores.

Pieris Mountain Fire is mostly open:

and Pieris Karenoma is starting:

I have lots of buds on other pierises but they're still closed (unlike last year when I had almost no pieris flowers).

I keep staring at the forsythia but nothing yet. Maybe I'm staring too hard, does a watched forsythia never bloom?

Claire

pixie_lou: I love that reticulated iris, do you know its name? Some years back I planted some but they got lost in a move. I think I should try again.

Claire

Claire - Sorry but I have no idea. I bought a mixed bag.

Jane your photo took my breath away!

Claire - the iris looks similar to 'Frank Elder' linked below.

Thanks to everyone for posting. Seeing the flowers blooming farther south reminds me that spring is on its way and will arrive here soon. I'll try to get out today to take photos of what is currently blooming for me.

Here is a link that might be useful: Iris histrioides 'Frank Elder'

Thanks, nhbabs. I've been going through the Brent and Beckys Bulbs catalogue and making lists of all the bulbs/plants I want to buy for this fall. I'll put that iris on the list. No guarantee it will survive the inevitable slashing of the list when I calculate the cost of all the wish list.

Claire

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Gotta love learning what we have in our garden by what's blooming. Not that I know what the second one is, mind you!

-Suzanne

Suzanne - that second one is Pulmonaria/lungwort. I had two plants that suffered in last year's drought but before they retreated for the depths (or cashed in their chips), they looked like yours. I knew they needed shade--just didn't do my homework about them needing plenty of moist shade.

Gardenweed: thank you! They're quite lovely, and are hanging out near a tree. I'm going to guess most of our soil is moist, since we do also have what I suspect to be a bleeding heart near our (artificial, and thus no actual bank exists) fish pond.

Since I'm obsessing over pieris, this is Pieris Little Heath just beginning to bloom. This is a great season for pieris in my garden. Usually I treasure this shrub for the variegated leaves, so any bloom is frosting.

Not a flower, but the grass is beginning to green up! Here a junco, the so-called "snow bird" seems to be saying "What's with this warm green snow? Maybe I've been flying north too early in past years."

Claire

With the gorgeous weather this week, lots of things are sprouting up!

I *think* these are Dutch Iris.

Hyacinth and Daffodils. These are in my white garden - the daffs (Mt. Hood) just opened, so still have a yellowish tinge.

Tete a Tete Daffodils in the Lawn

Pink Chinodoxa in the lawn

Just yesterday, the Forsythia came into full bloom

And today, my first tulip opened. It surprised me - since I'm still waiting for most of my daffodils to open.

Lastly, I have this white flowered plant that recently bloomed. I have no idea what it is. I bought it unlabeled.

pixie_lou - your pretty white mystery plant is Arabis/rock cress. I had a nice clump of it growing until last year's drought. It disappeared but I enjoyed it while I had it.

Love those white narcissus.

I like planting spring bulbs around or near dwarf/short conifers - they seem to be in better scale than a little bulb under a huge pine.

I was admiring the Scilla siberica by my P. rigida Sand Beach today,

and I almost forgot to look behind me at the Jetfire narcissus in the middle of the Juniper Grey Owl patch. My first daffodils this year!

Claire

Muscari azureum.

And another shot...

And Crocus ancyrensis 'Golden Bunch'

Hellebores been blooming for awhile....

Daffodils....so cheerful

prairiemoon - what is that in the front of the daffodil garden? It looks like Iris foliage, but the variegated foliage is throwing me off.

Leslie - love your Muscari. I have some white Muscari blooming in my garden

And - oh no - the dandelions have arrived!

PM2, that hellebore is GORGEOUS! Do you know the name?

Claire, I have some variegated pieris and I didn't know the name. It looks very similar to yours. Do you normally get bloom? I don't think I've ever seen any bloom but I do love the foliage of it.

Seeing all the photos makes me realize I need to plant more early spring bulbs.

thyme2dig: The first few years I didn't get bloom on the Little Heath but the last few years it's started. This is the best I've ever seen. I have three of them; two of which are blooming. I moved one last year and it's still blooming. The third was reverting to something non-variegated and I cut off the reversion hoping to root it. I should have just layered it but it's too late now. Anyway, that variegated parent is not blooming at all. Maybe they just need to get mature (and not get pruned). Mine do get a lot of sun.

Claire

pixie_lou, you are right, it is Iris foliage. Iris pallida 'Variegata'. It also has blue flowers that smell like grapes. Love it!

Thyme2, that Hellebore was a plug I bought through a coop. I think it's called 'Mellow Yellow'. It's the most vigorous strain of four I bought in 2009. Every year, I love Hellebores more and more. I recently saw someone post a photo of a visit to Tower Hill that had a hillside of Hellebores, daffodils and tulips that was inspiring.

Enjoying everyone's photos. Everything looks so fresh and new in the spring.

I was inspired to add more bulbs, when Wendy posted photos of her spring garden last year. Where's Wendy's photos? :-)

PM2, thanks for the info. I too love hellebore. Hellebore, tulip and daffodil...hmmmmm......I might just have to work on that.

I have the below spring combo of hellebore, daffodil and double bloodroot. This is from last year on April 11. Hopefully they will all be putting on their show soon! Makes me realize the plants are late this year. Although sadly, I'm pretty sure the voles got every last bit of bloodroot in that picture. I have a bunch on the other side of the daffodils that are poking through so at least I didn't lose them all.

Claire, I guess I'll have to wait a little more. I have 3 of them that have all been in for about 6-7 years with no pruning and still not a single bloom, but I really am OK with that since it's such a nice, small pretty shrub. I have one that wants to revert a sprig here or there but overall stays nice and variegated.

Thyme2, I've always loved that double bloodroot, gorgeous! So sorry to hear about voles. To me it often feels like one step forward and two steps back in the garden. If everything I ever bought and planted was still in my garden, I wouldn't have any lawn, I guess. (g) I wonder if you can collect seed from your doubles and try winter sowing them?

Great photos, all! So cheerful to know spring is coming ... if too slowly!

> whatever you are, purply-pink shrub thing!

That's a winter heath, Erica carnea. I've got lots of it, because I NEED flowers in winter in a way I don't really need them in summer. It's a wonderful plant, and thrives on neglect, which I can give it, liberally.

Aside from those, which really do have the longest bloom period of anything in my garden, I've got lots of daffs, minor bulbs, bloodroot (which seems to be in flower as it breaks through the soil) and hellebores (H. niger has gone by, but the hybrids and the H. foetidus are going strong).

For shrubs, there's one of those earliest of rhodies (can't recall the variety, but it's a nice light, bright pink), a Viburnum 'Dawn' that finally looks like something (after a couple of months of sporadic flowers), a Corylopsis pauciflora, Lindera benzoin, and Cornus mas.

This is actually a deep wine red hellebore, but the color doesn't photograph well:

I'm really amazed at the weeds this year - the bitter cress is blooming its head off, along with that little minty-looking creeper thing. Must get out there and do some weeding before they all set seed... I hate being behind already, when it's only April.

dtd, such a lovely shade of mauve and I love the way they don't all nod down but are up facing. I have a darker bunch, that I want to move next to the yellow. Those all hang down though, which is also okay with me, I like them that way too.

It's very windy and cool here today, but at least the sun is out for one day. It amazes me the daffodils are not all flattened.

That one's a beauty, PM, a really great color.

I've never met a hellebore I didn't like, now that I think of it.

Hi pixie lou,

Thank you for starting this thread! I've so enjoyed everyone's pictures. They're all wonderful but wispfox's little pulmonaria --just up out of the ground and already blooming made me laugh out loud. I ran out to check mine and though they're coming up, there are no flowers open yet. And prairiemoon2's Mellow Yellow hellebore is amazing! Such a unique color. (I want one!) I'm about to post a raspberry colored hellebore on the Hellebore Forum that looks like a cousin of Mellow Yellow.

Here are a couple more from my garden...

Magnolia 'Leonard Messel'

Pink hellebore

Black hellebore

Another pink hellebore

Hepatica

Leslie

Leslie, that Hepatica is gorgeous. This is a wonderful thread. Thanks, all you photographers! A suggestion--how about a new photo thread like this one for each month?

Love that dark Hellebore! It really does almost look black.

Thanks marya13! I so love my little hepaticas. I bought 5 on eBay last Spring and they all came back. A lovely mix of white, pale pink and pale lavender-blue. I definitely want many more.

And thanks prairiemoon2! Unfortunately, that black hellebore is only black in bud. It uglies up dramatically when it opens fully. Turns a sickly green and black. I can understand why hellebores are associated with witches! This one is the poster child of evil looking flowers.

And oh, those double bloodroots! Gorgeous, thyme2dig. I planted a few single sanguinaria but I see no signs of them. I wonder if voles got mine too. Losing those double bloodroot would break my heart.

And Claire, I love all of your photos!

Leslie

Since it is the end of April, I will start a thread for May soon. (Claire - how do I do those links so that I can reference previous months threads, so people can click the link - you do it on the bird thread all the time).

In the meantime - this week in my gardens. .

Tulips (Purissima) and Narcissus. I'm not sure of the variety of Narcissus - it was a mistake. This is in my white garden and I would never have bought a narcissus with an orange center.

Grecian Windflower and white muscari - also in the white garden

White Muscari

Purple Muscari

And finally - violets in the lawn. For some reason, I don't mind the violets in my lawn. I actually like the violets in my lawn. Yet, I spend hours on end pulling the dandelions out!

Just under the wire for the April thread!
Pixie, before you start the new thread, cut the URL of this one in to your "buffer" - then when you start the new thread, on the "preview message" page there will be a place to add a link, in the "edit message" area near the bottom.

Checkered lily (Fritillaria meleagris)

Epimedium:

Species tulip (Tulipa 'Tarda')

Labrador violets and "basket of gold" alyssum

Hellebore - Corsican (or maybe this is Ivory Prince?)

Like DTD, I was also hoping to get a few more blooms in before the end of the April thread, but no matter how hard I entreated them, the wisteria buds and tulip buds just sat there. Swollen, but not opening. Ah well, next month. It's great that you're doing this pixie_lou. A while back Belle Isis used to post What's Blooming threads but she hasn't been around for a few years.

There's extensive directions on inserting links in the How do I use HTML Code to change fonts and insert stuff in posts? FAQ.

Once you get the hang of it it's really easy and fast, but I suggest that each time just before you post a new thread you copy the Message box (with all the codes ) and save that message as a text file somewhere. Just copy those codes into your next thread. That way you don't go crazy when you have to refer to a bunch of links.

I was just writing out specific directions when I saw you figured it out yourself! A new recurring thread is born!

Claire

I'm just squeezing in at the end of the month too. Been meaning to post to your threads Pixie Lou but have fallen a bit behind on editing photos. I've enjoyed looking at other people's blooms.

Here are some flowers from the last week of April.

First tulip of the Spring -

Hyacinths -

My first ever Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica) budding, so excited about these -

Some daffs -

Love those daffs, Terrene! So darn cheerful, aren't they? I forgot to get a shot of my tulips - they'll have to go into the May thread.

Not quite sure which thread to post this on. This rhododendron has been blooming for several weeks in April but I hadn't been able to get a pic that does it justice. This pic was taken on May 1 but the rhodie looks the same as it did a few days ago - I just got the sun on it today.

Rhododendron 'Mary Fleming'

Claire

Same problem here: this daffodil, N. Toby the First, is one of my first daffodils to bloom in April but I didn't like the photos. Taken on May 1 but blooming since early in April. It's been coming back for years now so I keep planting more.

Claire

Claire - that is such a pretty rhododendron! I don't think I've ever seen that color before.