The garden is finally starting to awaken from the long winter.
The first to awaken were the crocuses, which have already come and gone.
These are in the front of the house, viewable only from an awkward angle looking out the dining room window. I think I may move them to a more easily-seen spot in my early spring border out back, and plant some other early bloomers to keep them company.
After the crocuses, the first real wave of early spring flowers came in: daffodils, muscari (grape hyacinth), pink and purple hyacinth, and brunnera (false forget-me-nots).
I also have a few spots of color here and there that I’m really not sure what they are. This is only my third spring in this house, and I’m still learning what are established plantings versus happy volunteers.
From the bushy greenery and few buds I see, I’m guessing that the next things to bloom will be the allium and the mystery red peonies with the yellow center.
In my travels through the flowerbeds, I’ve also seen that the local deer have been stopping by the buffet already. If they eat all my lilies and firepokers again this year, I may go a little mental.
Another observation while wandering amongst the flowers: our lawn service did a spring cleanup after the early spring flowers had bloomed, and I understand now just a few reasons why some gardeners hate leafblowers with the power of a thousand suns. Many of my hyacinths were blown over (hence why the photo above is of them in a vase instead of outside), some of my daffodils looked a little tipsy, and the unidentified blue flower (which is in the middle of a bed that has literally nothing else in it and will be the subject of my attention probably this fall or next year) was completely flattened.
Not to say I don’t appreciate the job they did; they were in our yard for a good three hours, raking and blowing and de-thatching and mowing and cutting and other things that probably would have taken my husband and I two weekends to complete while wrangling our three-year-old at the same time. At this point in our lives, with full-time jobs and opposite schedules and a son in preschool three days a week, as much as I might like to spend lots of quality time in my beds and borders, I have to save those precious hours for “fun” things rather than time-consuming and labor-intensive tasks.
But I digress.
Finally — indoors, not only am I happily starting herbs and vegetables, but my African violet decided to grace our kitchen with some more flowers.
As always, many thanks to May Dreams Gardens for hosting Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day on the 15th of every month!
Hi Dianna! William H. Cook is my second great grandfather as well. I found his marriage record in Ohio, Marriages, 1800-1958 via familysearch.org I did quite a bit of research and there are quite a few William Cook babies born in Feb 1868 (going by census, marriage, and death records) but only one in the birth records for Ohio. So I guessed that everyone who’s William Cook was born in Feb 1868 attached that record. I got rid of it and went with the easy to follow census data which makes perfect sense. He was married in Clermont County the 1870 Census with Thomas and Rachel is in Clermont County, the 1860 census List Thomas, Rachel, and Isabell in Clermont County, and then Thomas is found with Eliza and Elenor in Clermont county in the 1850 census. It makes sense to me. What I’m looking for now is a death record for Thomas or Rachel. No luck yet. I even scoured some Newspaper articles. Here is a gateway to free newspapers http://www.howardcountymemory.net/default.aspx?id=3086 you have to go through that library page then click the access.newspaperarchive.com for it to be free. I saved the actual destination as a favorite and they wanted a subscription when I went directly to it but when going through the library it is free