Things to Look Forward To

Spring is coming. Really.

Signs of the coming gardening season are beginning to appear all over from the daffodils, tulips, and hyacinths beginning to emerge to the swelling buds on the trees. Very soon warmer weather will begin again and we will be fully emersed in the garden once again. In anticipation of the coming gardening season I thought I’d give you a preview of what may come.

All of these images are from April of last year when many of our spring blooming plants were peaking.

I can’t wait to see my favorite blooming tree the Yoshino Cherry (Prunus yeodensis) in bloom. We now have two of them in our yard along with a third cherry tree from the Arbor Day Foundation. It was supposed to be a Yoshino as well but I have some doubts that they sent me the right tree. I’ll know for sure once it blooms.

The Yoshino cherry puts on a fantastic show each spring.
I can’t wait to see the hostas start to emerge from the ground with their variegated foliage. I like to let them flower in the summer and collect the seed. I’d like to add a few more hostas, particularly the ones I’m growing from seed, to the corner shade garden.
The tulips should be in full bloom by April. These tulips in the front sidewalk garden are a mix of ‘Negrita’ and ‘Shirley’. They began forming yellow flowers that eventually became the white and purple colors you see in the picture. Sometimes tulips don’t come back but since I’ve noticed quite a few leaves emerging from the ground I’m hopeful that we’ll have another nice display.
My mailbox garden will be undergoing some changes this year. For some reason one of the two ‘May Night’ salvias didn’t do so well through the summer last year. I added three divisions of another kind of salvia (‘East Friesland’ or ‘Caradonna’ I don’t remember which), a Russian sage, and some daylillies. Every garden undergoes tweaking from time to time, or maybe it’s more like all the time! The ‘Homestead Purple’ Verbena is a power house in the garden and blooms prolifically from spring through summer. It’s a great perennial to propagate through cuttings.

There’s a quick look at a few of the things I’m anticipating for this spring. Spring is coming. Really, it is!

7 thoughts on “Things to Look Forward To”

  1. Oh my goodness! You must be terribly excited to have all that soon emerging. I love hostas when they first start to unfurl. And that cherry looks absolutely heavenly. I look forward to pics throughout the season.

  2. Very pretty. I like the variegated foliage on the tulips. We have a Canon headquarters near by and they planted the streets lined with cherry trees. What a sight in the spring. Will have to remember the camera in the car!
    Janet

  3. Dave,

    Nice photos and something to look forward to seeing for sure. Funny that the Arbor Day Foundation sends out non native trees. I forgot they send us some kind of tree last year not native to here so, they never got planted. You would think they would wake up to native tree. My favorite native Chickasaw Plum, fragrant and covers up in butterflies.

  4. I’m sure this year would be better and more colorful. I love that row of tulips! Wonderful display. How about trying crazy colors together? Like may be blue and yellow together?

  5. Oh the lovely anticipation. I too walked abound trying to find any sign of spring today. I did find a few things emerging…. but isn’t it funny, the greenest things I saw were weeds! Looks like my work is already starting. Lovely site, I will read more.
    ~Brooke

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