First Signs Of Spring... Here

Spring has been indecisive this year. We get warm weather, then snow, then melt, then rain and snow, then melt, then snow..... 

It's confusing, and not just for people. Plants can't decide whether to stay submerged, or start to poke out. Squirrels are supposed to be relying on spring buds and blossoms as well as their remaining stores from fall, and instead are returning to digging up last years bulbs which should have stopped being bulbs by now, and instead have stopped being in the ground at all. New holes are appearing where protective cover has had to be removed because earlier blooming plants already need to be up. Last week a daffodil got dug up and promptly dropped because it took until it was out of the ground for the offending squirrel to realize it wasn't food they like. Unfortunately, since then it located several more of the summer blooming lilies it was feasting on last fall which it managed to miss back then. 

It didn't miss them this week. But now I miss them, especially after how expensive they were. Luckily I did pop into a big box store's garden department and locate some replacement bulbs at a much lower price for many of the same varieties. I plan to start them indoors next month so they are established plants at the beginning of summer, when I can see what if anything actually survived the squirrels, and plant the leafed out new ones in (some of) the holes. I may just go around to other stores to look for other varieties to safely pre-sprout indoors. There is that gift card from Christmas for a fancy garden center.....

The snow from two days ago has finished melting. Green tips are emerging. Some are obviously iris and others daylily leaves, but tiny ones hold the promise of scilla and crocus. I gave the garden beds a peek when I took some garbage out this morning.

The first thing I spotted was a bit of blue. Scillas! Still folded into buds, blooms should open in the next day or two. A few steps further to another bed...

...and the first fully open bloom showed a yellow crocus, close to the path where people walk between building to get to the new postal boxes in the community center/ storm shelter. It got finished last fall, so we no longer have to choose between a bunch of stairs or a 3 mile drive to a storm shelter without stairs when we need one. This one is two hundred feet away, tops

After clearing old dead leaves away which were covering last year's rhubarb bed, patches of green and orange-red emerged. I predict we will have some good picking this year despite offering some family members the opportunity to dig out some of their own plants. Last year we moved in after they had become unmanageable, bolted and gone to seen in a patch of tall seed clumps on hollow wood stalks, far from edible for the rest of the summer. There are plenty left now, for those interested.... Just get in line.