Mother Nature hasn’t been playing very nice with us. While we haven’t had any more snow, it hasn’t been very warm. And the skies have been mostly grey.

That means the crocuses have mostly remained tightly closed, awaiting warmer days when the bees are flying. But that doesn’t mean nothing else is happening in the garden.

The Hellebores are continuing to do their thing.

Some Glory of the Snow getting ready to show off all it’s glory.

There’s even some daffodils pushing up buds. The full beauty of spring is only moments away!

The lilacs are putting on buds.

And the peonies are starting to push through!

The sky may be grey, but the ground is getting real green.

To celebrate, I pulled all the pine and willow cuttings from the front boxes and gave them a dose of spring.

Giant Tiger had a whole load of potted spring bulbs. Usually the stores just have daffodils, tulips and hyacinths. But this time found giant crocuses and iris reticulata – a small, early spring blooming iris. They will handle the early cold much better than the other bulbs which naturally bloom a little later.

The two plants are a little tricky to tell apart when not blooming, but I think they are going to look fabulous together when those flowers pop! And of course, once these blooms are done, and I change the boxes over for summer, these bulbs will go in the other gardens!