Sweet Harbingers of Spring

Here are the first of this year's snowdrops from out front in the original bulb bed. Almost as soon as the snow cover began to melt, these cheerful late winter troopers emerged to begin the annual bursting of the bulbs festival around Casa IVG.
In fact, Snowdrops (galanthus sp.) often will indeed poke their heads out from under the snow and surprise you, but this year, given the enormous cover we had for over a month, they really didn't get a chance until the big thaw started to happen the week after the last ice/snow festival ... the one that claimed the Ranger, as you'll recall.

There's a lot to recommend these little guys for any garden, especially if you just can't stand how winter drags on and you crave to see some proof that flowers will indeed return soon! They are virtually carefree once planted (and since they're small bulbs, that's not too big of a task initially), they naturalize nicely after a few years and return faithfully every year, usually around the end of February for us, (though as noted, it was significantly later this year). Once we see Snowdrops nodding their graceful white heads, we know the crocus can't be far behind ... as you can see in the following photo taken the same day (17 March, 2007). The simplest of all crocus (to my mind), the "snow crocus" varieties are among my very favorite flowers ... due in large part, I think because I've always associated them with the early heady days of spring when you know that aside from a few isolated minor incidents, the snows are either receding or gone completely from the garden.

Since these were taken a whole host of others have popped up and are blooming in shades ranging from deep purples, yellow, white and striped varieties ... Unfortunately I've not been able to get any pictures yet due to weather ... no more snow, but increasingly frequent rains and overcast days ... Sunday was a glorious high of 82, however with the sustained spring winds of 30-40 mph, it was a bad day to try to get flowers to stand still ... so you'll have to hope (as I am) that there are sunnier, calmer days ahead later this week, so I can capture them and bring them to a gardening blog near you...

... Stay tuned ...