The garden is coming back to life

[An unfinished post from March 6th:]

Last spring was very cold and wet.  The ground didn’t even unfreeze until … sometime in late March, maybe?  I’m having trouble remembering exactly, though I imagine my archives say so if anyone cares enough.  But here, the last of the snow and ice melted last week, and since then it’s been raining torrentially.  It started last Wednesday and it has been pouring on and off since, with occasional snow mixed in.  It is, in fact, pouring rain as I type.  All this rain has helped the ground thaw out somewhat and the bulbs have started coming up.  The crocuses are coming up in the front and the grape hyacinths, glory of the snow, colchicums (which will just be leaves; they bloom in autumn and the leaves come up in spring and stay till Juneish) and others are coming up in the back.  Lots of plants have fresh leaves as well – most of the ones that are evergreen here have fresh growth (alpine strawberries, foxglove rosettes, basket of gold [perennial alyssum], etc.) and a surprising number of the other perennials have leaf buds, such as the asters and the Shasta daisies.

It’s particularly surprising because as I have mentioned here many times, the front garden has the most dramatic seasonal difference in light of anywhere I’ve ever lived – in summer at least a little bit of it is in sunlight nearly the entire day, until the sun drops below the building next door in the evening, but in winter nearly the entire front yard/sidewalk are in shade the entire day (just a bit of the stairs/sidewalk and a bit of the sod get even reflected light), and it’s only been in recent weeks that a bit of light has slanted onto the garden itself.  Consequently, typically the bulbs and perennials are all at least a few weeks behind other area gardens in March and April.  My crocuses were the last to bloom in the neighborhood last spring!  But the thawing is early and seems dramatic.