So why am I relieved? We had about 5 ½ inches of snow yesterday, which will protect the plants from the worst of the temperature swings. The bulb part of hardy spring bulbs will survive anything that erratic late winter weather can inflict on them (so far). The flowers may fizzle and sometimes the foliage looks roughed up, but the plants are fine the following year.
The tips of the daffodils are mostly what’s visible today, although there are some leaf tips of dwarf irises poking out here and there. What else is under that snow?
Before the March 13 Snow
Saturday, March 11, after several very cold nights—the lowest temperature I believe was 13°F— I took some photos in the midday sun. It was still quite cold, about 26°, when I took these snapshots.
The snowdrops are not where I originally put them. The squirrels love to rearrange them, although if they have also been eating them, I cannot tell. The snowdrops seem to be multiplying quite well.
The bluebells were the biggest surprise of last week. They look like little purple bouquets stuck right into the ground, and they seem to be growing in the midday sun, although they are closest in color to my Prismacolor pencil called Black Grape on these very cold sub-20° mornings. Scary. They looked dead in the morning, and fine by afternoon.
The Scilla bifolia ‘Rosea’ are blooming under the snow. They are the first serious attraction for honeybees, although not this year—it’s just been too cold. They have only just started blooming.
And then there are various crocuses, which are widely separated so they can star in their own corners of the yard.
There are three earlier varieties. The flowers succumbed to the bitter nights before the snow, but the foliage looked undamaged, at least by the weather. The purple pigment must be unpalatable, as the purpler the flower, the less likely it is to be on the rabbits’ menu.
Update from late March: The Vanguard crocuses must hedge their bets weather-wise, as a whole bunch more bloomed in honor of spring.
But there is one non-purple crocus the rabbits don’t bother, which is fortunate, because it’s my favorite.
So much for early spring flowers.
It will be interesting to see how the rest of the spring progresses, as the bleeding hearts are an inch or two high, most of my tulips are at least starting to come up, and many of the daffodils are in bud. There is a lot going on under the snow.
All of these snapshots were taken with an iPhone 5s and were cropped and resized in Preview on a Mac. No other manipulations were applied.