Two warm days and spring has exploded into full force.  The trees don’t have leaves yet but 70°F brings up all the bulbs, opens the hyacinths, and starts the daffodils.  It also brings out the neighbors.  I saw more people around the block yesterday than I had in all the last three months combined, and everyone was out raking, fertilizing, aerating, blowing….. all the good things that responsible subdivision inhabitants fill their sunny days with.  In the front bed we have our first dose of flower sunshine, good old “tete a tete” daffodil.  It’s the Stella D’Oro of daffodils and gives nice early color.

I have to confess I broke the camera last weekend.  It’s a Nikon D3000 with a Nikkor 18-55mm 3.5-5.6GII lens……. I have no idea what any of that means but I’m sure it has something to do with expensive and something to do with even more expensive to fix.  The camera met the floor and the plastic tabs that hold the lens snapped off.  Apparently it’s a common break and after several hours of moping and cursing (silently of course, away from the kids) I went online and found the fix.  It was a generic lens bayonet piece which I ordered as well as the tiny screwdrivers needed to replace it.  Two days ago I replaced it and am now back in business.  There was one more final blip in the road, it was the crappy, non-functional, cheap (more cursing) screwdrivers.  I gave them to the boy, who has a talent for disposing of small tools, and then made a trip to Home Depot and got a Husky set (for less money btw).  The camera came back on line just in time.  Here’s a picture of the front border with blue scilla siberica and the reds of corydalis solida.  Corydalis might just be one of my new favorite spring bulbs.

I’m not 100% sure if they really are true to their names, but I bought the darker red corydalis as “George Baker”  and the lighter, almost pink as “Beth Evans” (both from Brent and Becky’s Bulbs).  Most of the time I can’t tell the difference between the two, but I don’t entirely care.  Both are nice and I need more.  There are whites, purples, pale pinks…… but they’re hard to find and not exactly cheap.  Maybe I’ll treat myself this fall to two or three affordable ones…..  I just won’t buy any more new work ties for a year or two.

Not blooming yet are some I bought as the generic corydalis solida, it’s a murky mauve color, shorter, wimpier looking, and I’m not crazy about it.  I’ll bore you with a picture of it when the blooms open.

The blue of the scilla siberica and the violet stars of the chiondoxa are nice enough too, but if you look closely you’ll see a bunch of seedlings coming up.  I’m not sure I want that many and wonder if they’re going to be a pest some day.  But on the other hand a weed with a bright blue or violet color might not be the worst problem to have, so for now they are welcome reseeders.

The hellebores have come up too,  these survived spending the winter buried in kids toys and trash and are now looking all dark and moody.

They look better in the picture than in the garden, the colors are too dark to show up well, but the dark one is cool.  Originally these were bought as “sunshine strain” from Barry Glick’s nursery maybe 5 years ago.  I expected a nicer range and bigger blooms but I guess you get what you get…. also the plants were kind of tiny when I got them…. I should probably stop there.

Here’s a lighter one, an “Ashwood strain” from Santa Rosa Gardens.  I like it.

That’s enough for now.  Daffodils are coming up and I need to save my energy for that.