Spring's Tentative Arrival

WELL LOOKIE WHAT I got! 

Daffodil 'Tete-a-Tete' blooming for the second year in a container! 

It wasn't that many days ago that I was writing about... 

...this! 

And it wasn't long after that when the pristine whiteness of it all morphed into...

...this!  (Discarded snow piled in the corner of a parking lot.) 

But, lo and behold, underneath it was... 

 ...this! (Pulmonaria 'Reginald Kaye') 

And walking a little farther along the garden path was...

...this! (Helleborus 'Hot Flash')

Not too shabby, eh? I've noticed lots of things blooming around town too. Camellias, fruit trees, Magnolias, Azaleas... Spring is making a valiant effort to shoo away winter. 

A few days ago, I pulled into the parking lot of a store. Outside the front entrance was a display of  tantalizing offerings begging to get their picture taken. So I obliged. 

Gerbera Daisy with water drops.

A deeper-colored Gerbera

Luscious tulips just waiting to go home with me. 

English Daisies--some of the nicest I've seen.

And one more photo... just because nothing says spring like pretty flowers. 

I think it's time to celebrate spring! 

As always, 

Lest You Think We Have "Mild" Winters...

I SUPPOSE IF you were to compare the Pacific Northwest to, say, Alaska or Siberia or Manitoba, you would agree that our winters are comparatively mild. And they are, mostly. I mean rainfall is abundant, clearly. And wind can be annoyingly violent at times but it's all doable. Nothing too dramatic in these parts. No siree.

But then we all have the occasional freak "weather event" (the media call it). It seems like these weird, anomalies are happening a lot this year. But winter is over now. I mean, many of you are having 80 degree weather. And some of you, like Darla and FlowerLady, in Florida are having 90 degree weather. Hooray it's springtime! 

OR NOT

Just when we thought we were out of the woods, WHAM. 

Taken at 11ish this morning. 

Yep. No spring daffodils to be seen in these parts. They're buried under a foot of snow!

The front yard and the cars after a bit of melting. 

The snow started before I woke yesterday morning. At 6:30 AM, when my alarm went off, it was coming down. By 10 PM, when I went to bed, it was STILL coming down. It was a continual buildup all day long. Never before, at least to my {admittedly limited} recollection has there been in these parts a snowstorm that just kept dumping more and more and more snow, it like it did yesterday. 

Okay there. I got that out of my system. 

Since the snow is awfully pretty, I thought I'd post a few photos I took from my garden. Then below the snow photo, a summer photo of the same area because, we all know summertime and green and flowers and birdsong are what we're all longing for now, right?

March 22, 2012

June 2010

March 22, 2012, the patio, looking north

August, 2010, rainy day photo looking north

March 22, 2012, looking to the south lawn area. 

The south lawn in June, 2011

The pathway to the edge of the north garden, March 21, 2012

The north garden area last June, 2012

"Daphne, oh Daphne..." A Lesson in Memory

I HAVE A CONFESSION. You know how sometimes you get something stuck in your head and every now and then, even years later, it's still there, coming to the surface at the recollection of some similar stream of consciousness?  Like there is some kind of arcane association going on? Well, now that you're going, "what are you talking about, Grace?" I'll explain. 

I was thinking about what's blooming in the garden right now and the first flower that came to me was Daphne odora, those sweet, lemony-scented star-shaped jewels that adorn a smallish evergreen shrub in February and March. You know the one...

Then, while pondering the merits of my Daphne, I heard a voice in my head that went, 

"Daff-nee, Oh, Daff-neeee..." And I was like, 

Hmm...where is this coming from?  

I do love my Daphne but this voice was not mine. It was from my past...my distant past. And then without any real prompting on my part, just a teeny tiny hint, likely fueled by my recent trip to the (figurative) basement to unearth my boxed-up history... a TV show... A show I used to watch... 

With the Internet at my fingertips, I followed those inner promptings, allowing Google and then Wikipedia to sate my curiosity. After reading the plot and characters, I discovered her! 

DAPHNE 

One of the characters from the soap opera...Dark Shadows. 

And the voice I was hearing must have been the desperate utterings of... 

...Barnabas!

Barnabas, calling out to his beloved Daphne in some kind of come-hither unrequited desperation.    

Hmm... But it wasn't that simple because it was a soap and it was convoluted and mysterious and twisted. This was what I learned from Wikipedia anyway. I was between the ages of 6-11 when the soap aired from 1966 to 1971. Although I'm sure I was incapable of following the story line, I loved the show. It was creepy and sinister and scary. Despite a long-ago voice stored in the recesses of my mind, mostly what I remember from back then was trying to see the characters through a sans-cable, snowy black and white. 

But years later, hardly unrequited, my beloved Daphne is in living color and perfumes my room and makes me happy. 

As always, 

Marching into March

EARLY LAST WEEK WE had a nice little snow storm. I'm thinking it was the weather gods defying the fact that it's almost March. You know, like trying to let us know who's boss. Fortunately the plants were no worse for the wear. Linnie of Women Who Run With Delphiniums fame lives not too far from me and also experienced the snowstorm. She even has a few really pretty photos she took before it melted. On her latest post she also has photos of a sweet little pink flower blooming in her garden right now. She defined it as Rhododendron cilpinense which was a huge help to me since I've been wondering what that pink beauty is called that blooms in my neck of the woods. Thanks to Linnie, I can now be on the lookout for it should space open up in my garden.  

Below are photos I took today. Although I'm not a huge Rhodie fan, I love this one. See if you don't agree. 

The snow gods aren't finished, apparently. It looks like we could get another blast of snow on Tuesday. Lovely. 

As always,