The thin end

Thanks to such fellow bloggers and gardeners as Mr. McGregor's Daughter and Cold Climate Gardening, I have started to reconsider the spring ephemerals. You all may think of me as a bulb fanatic, but in fact I have been ignoring an entire group of early-spring-flowering plants.

But then I started looking at the images on other people's blogs. People who have a lot more going on that I do in March and early April!


So last fall I ordered some previously ignored species. At top you see eranthis hyemalis. And you may well wonder why I never
had these delightful plants before. I also planted some early-blooming dwarf iris to join the other early bulbs, though I've not seen the iris yet. Other than galanthus, most of my bulbs-even the scilla, species tulips and the erythronium-bloom in late April and May. My earliest perennial is helleborus (above).

Now what I need are some hepatica (which aren't bulbs). The main reason I've ignored many of the early-bloomers is that I've grouped them with crocus, which can look like wet rags in bad spring weather (and bad is pretty much the only item on the weather menu in March). But we've had some great March days and I'm getting soft on the whole issue. I'm still not sure about crocus, but eranthis were a good idea.