Two weeks ago I found a place where the wood frogs sound their mating calls and have gone back almost every day to hear them again. Apparently, there are no wood frogs on the farm, so it was a real shock when I first heard the sound, suspecting it might be some distant grackles. The peeps won't be far behind and the garden is waking up, a little something new to see almost every day. Minor bulbs, the little ones, are so worth planting and should always go in when the gardener is young (or yesterday). My drifts of snowdrops are amazing, as are the winter aconites. It's taken some 30 years to see them spread so far, the impact is what makes February and March seem a little less winter-like. I have often recommended the planting of minor bulbs to people, only to have them say that in the scale of their garden, the affect is too little. Nonsense!
The hellebores or Lenten rose are definitely surging. I have a particularly good blackish one from Pine Knot. There was a time that I sold good black flowering hybrids, but failed to keep any, so it's nice to have this one.
Sweet box or Sarcococca hookeriana humilis is in full bloom, the flowers are not showy but amazingly fragrant. As I was sitting on the ground to photograph the snowdrops, the fragrance was truly sweet, and I'm sure it's part of the reason for the common name.
Inspecting the seed pods on witch hazel or Hamamelis virginiana, I noticed small drill holes on each seed pod. Knowing that the exploding seeds make much larger holes, I suspected a weevil and sure enough it's one that relies on this particular witch hazel to survive. Better known as Psuedoanthonomous hamamelids, the adults feed on leaves and flowers with fertile females laying eggs in the seed pod in fall and young feeding on the seed before emerging in spring.
It will be many days before I begin the real clean-up of perennial beds to allow dormant insects to thaw and wakeup. For now, the epimedium, helleborus, and shade grasses have been cut down. Garden shears can be used on the epimediums if it's done soon, way before flowering stems begin to uncurl. On helleborus I remove last years leaves, the first task of the year. When I energetically use my garden shears, my fitbit thinks I'm walking or running and gives me shooting stars for my accomplishments. The gardener may not need a fitbit to track their exercise, getting the work done is enough. And you should see the numbers when I'm flinging weeds; good grief, she must be jumping hurdles! And in a way, I am.
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