I promised that I wouldn't miss spring this year. I am trying to pay attention to every detail. Still, I am looking outside this morning and the grass has gotten green in 2 days. I mean that brilliant spring green that makes you think that it is warm out there even if that isn't quite true.
Although you can drive along at 40 mph and see spring happening; the green grass, the haze of buds on the trees, early spring is a time to concentrate on small things.
The earliest of plants are tiny. Snowdrops, (Galanthus) if you are lucky enough to have them, take a while to establish and the flowers that are so unique are tiny and to really see them you have to either pick them and bring them up to eye level or get down on your hands and knees and look closely at them. There are people out there, Galianthus nuts, who collect all the different little markings on them. They are unique and fleeting but there are hundreds of cultivars and each one is so welcome at this time of year.
Crocuses are still one of my favorites. I stopped planting the white ones in lawns because I think that they look like pieces of tissue on the lawn but the yellows and purples and blues can be all thrown together or grouped according to color. They are so brief and so wonderful to have that 'tasteful' groupings are to me not an issue. I plant the white ones up close to the house in little corners where they can be clearly seen for what they are, not pieces of paper on the not quite raked spring lawn but beautiful little flowers.
My Hamamalis has been in bloom now for almost a month. I have two that are blooming now, Arnold's Promise and Diane The flowers on this shrub are no where near as interesting from a far. But when you cut a branch for the house or get up close to it in the garden it is so fragrant and elegant. I think that it is underused in the garden and one of the honey bee's favorite early sources of food. When nothing else is in bloom it is a star and later on the horizontal shape of this shrub is pleasing in the understory, up against the woods or in those hard to plant places that you would like put some shrubs with flowers that fit in with a more formal planting.
I can't forget the Magnolia. My little Star Magnolia (Magnolia stellata) is getting ready to open. The buds are to me just as beautiful as the flowers. The other magnolias here at the farm are not as far along as the star. Late spring frosts can damage the flowers of these trees but that is no reason not to plant them. I also have heard of people who don't like them because if they are truly successful they make a huge mess when they drop their blossoms. What? A pile of pink or white or yellow on the green grass is ugly? It is a small price to rake a bit for that unbelievable display so early in the spring.
And of course Forsythia. This is a hard shrub to place in the landscape. The next time you drive by a MacDonalds or Walmart's you will undoubtedly see the wrong way to plant them. If you have the space and can let this shrub go and arch it's branches as they should be allowed to do and NOT place it next to a PJ purple Azalea, and if you realize that the bright yellow color is going to last a bit in the landscape, and realize too that your Forsythia is going to bloom right along with and complete aggressively with that wonderful Magnolia that you have been waiting for,then..... plant it please. It is the most wonderful spring color and you will have the added benefit of not having to stop on the highway or in other people's yards to steal branches to force in the wintertime.
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