Grape hyacinth and tulips are the only garden flowers that are blooming right now. I have always liked looking inside tulips to see their patterns. This purple tulip is showing a white and blue design on the inside of the petals. The bright yellow stamens have shed some pollen probably with the help of a bee or other pollinator.
The inside of this tulip has a design you can’t see from the outside.
We also planted some wild ginger (Asarum canadense), a native plant, and I was happy to see it breaking out of the ground. The flowers will come a little later in the spring. One of our two peach trees is blooming. The second peach tree is putting up suckers and most of the woody parts from last year appear dead. It is planted a little too close to the septic drain field and I will try moving it to a different location.
Ferns that volunteered next to the house are showing their little fiddle heads. Each year this batch of fern looks lovelier than the previous year’s growth. It is thriving in the shade on the north side of the house. Several pieces of the root have been transplanted to different areas in hopes of propagating it.
Cinquefoil with its five bright yellow petals and five-part leaves is running all over part of the backyard. It seems to thrive in areas nearest the large oak trees where grass has a hard time growing, most likely due to a lack of sufficient water. Most would call it a weed but I enjoy seeing the bright yellow flowers dotting the landscape.
Dandelions are taking over part of the front yard. This shot of the leaves is simply here to compare with goatsbeard when I see it blooming.
Another native flower that we have growing in the same area as the cinquefoil is the northern violet. Northern violet has downy, oblong-shaped leaves instead of the typical heart-shaped leaves of the common violet.
I was pleasantly surprised to see another patch of hepatica in the woods yesterday. White hepatica was found blooming in the northeast corner of the property on a north-west facing slope. It was adjacent to a large patch of purple, round-leaved hepatica.
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