April’s garden is a fickle garden. One day there are bees and sunshine aplenty like you saw yesterday… and then bam!

Mother Nature hits you with an ice storm. That was Wednesday morning. By afternoon it had turned to regular rain. But not before it did a number on the first daffodils that bloomed.

Happily they recovered nicely in the warmth Thursday brought and by Friday we’re bright and cheery.

I’m actually lying – these big guys out front weren’t the first daffodils to bloom. These were.

These little guys are tiny – not much bigger than the crocuses. They are my Arctic Bells Daffodils, and always the first to bloom. I’ve got several little clumps of them and I should dig them up to and move them to better spots when they are done blooming. I didn’t realize how small they were when I planted them and you have to go looking for a couple of the clumps each spring. Still – they make me smile. I’m also smiling about this.

My Forsythia is blooming. I’ve had it for a couple years now but this is the first year it’s bloomed. Last summer, after the guys built the new fence at the back of the yard, I moved it from its previous spot to in front of the fence. It gets a lot more sun here than it did at the corner of the shed. I think that’s the secret to this year’s final success. I also relocated a double blooming white lilac to the fence as well – it was getting severely shaded by the raspberries. But we’ll have to wait a bit to see the results from that one. It’s still very small – though it does have leaf buds so at least it survived the winter.

Elsewhere, new crocuses pop up daily.

This one is the Whale Shark giant crocus. It’s a pretty two-tone purple. I’ve got quite a few hyacinths coming along too.

So far Lemmy seems to be letting the ones in the Catio live – unlike last year.

I was thrilled to discover my pink Hellebore bloomed this year. It didn’t last year and I was a little worried it was just going to die off. It’s got a couple more buds too. I had a white one as well but I’m not seeing any sign of it. It may still show up when I finally clear away the leaves (that will be another week or two from now)

And last, I once again filled my boxes with forced spring plants from the grocery store (blue hyacinths and red tulips). The boxes are a little muddy because I planted them up yesterday when it was pouring rain. I had to get them in though – I made the mistake of holding off last year and the hyacinths bloomed and got floppy before I could get them in. It might have been a bit messy, but this way they will be better acclimatized to the weather.

How’s your April garden doing?