What a sight for sore eyes!!! Things are so slow here. A couple of daffodils, and a few tulips, with our Tulip Festival having started today with NO tulips. My peonnies are in bud but nothing else. What are the beautiful blue flowers? I love blue flowers.

That's too bad about the tulip festival!! Things are moving at a snail's pace here too but they're s-l-o-w-l-y picking up. My peonies are budded too and they seemed to shoot up a foot the past couple of days. The baptisia is going to be gorgeous this year and all mine (I have 5 in different beds around the garden) should bloom this year. There are buds on two of my established columbines. I love blue flowers too!! I think the blue flowers in the photos are Virginia bluebells. I bought a pot of them on a markdown table and set it near where they're growing in the photo but thought they died before I could plant them. Evidently not!

Too lazy to do photos, but Ive got the end of daffodils, some tulips starting, bleeding heart, grape hyacinth, primulas.

Your pictures are always wonderful gardenweed!!

I dare not take pictures cause some plants look so sad right now, and we are getting more rain as we speak.

I have siberian wallflower blooming that I sowed this year along with my virginia stock.

Dianthus barbatus, phlox divartica, and my gailardia are blooming also. I have buds on my shasta daisy silver princess and my persian chocolate.

I almost forgot the rudbeckia fulg?? the perennial small one that I sowed last year is also budding.

Gardenweed I also wanted to let you know I haven't seen one sign of my baptisma I sowed last year, but I do have sprouts in the container I sowed this year. The balloon flower and ruellia did come back though, so I am happy.

What have I got bloomin?
CREEPING CHARLIE-----------------------

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Tree peony and siberian bugloss, neither one was wintersown, alas.

Those are gorgeous flowers, gardenweed.
Thank you for sharing your photos. Spring so lively, so full of promises, isn't it?

There are a lot of things in bloom in my garden. My garden began to bloom in late February. Some of those are gone, but many new things are coming up.

This is my sliver of woodland collection:
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A friend gave me a few Trilliums a few years ago. This one blooms first:
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She also gave me this wood anemone:
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And this. I have no idea what it is called:
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I have coveted Mertensia virginica. Finally the collection has taken off:
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Last year I splurged on these darling little natives:
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I also wanted these native primulas of Europe. After a few attempts at sowing seeds from TM, I finally begged a GW member in Europe to send me seeds. These are the products of seeds from Belgium:
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This one is sweetly fragrant, but you have to be far away downwind to catch the scent:
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This is the quintessential primrose:
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I stepped on these shooting stars by accident. This plant came from Alaska:
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Another native Dicentra from Ellen's seedlings:
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These are primulas from the Chicago plant swaps. Ellen always furnished us with many seedlings every year. People usually didn't know what they were because the seedlings were tiny.....:
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This is my first primula that really took off. It came from a neighbor down the street:
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Yellow Epimedium from Ellen as well:
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Prairie Smoke from seeds. Those of you who received Prairie Smoke seedlings from me last year should have some ready to bloom in their garden by now:
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Erythornium pagoda, another native of the PNW. Grown from corms:
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White Bleeding Heart from a friend:
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A purchased pink Bleeding Heart:
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Helleborus that were planted more than 12 years ago finally took off:
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Pulmonaria, also a seedling from Ellen's plant swap. Every time I went I swore I would not come home with any plants. Lol:
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Variegated Solomon's Seal. Took it several years before it began to multiply. When I saw it at the plant swap, I always swiped it too, to add to my collection:
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Lunaria annua, Money Plant:
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I sowed Forget-me-not 26 years ago when we first moved into the house. I have never had to sow the seeds again:
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Fritilaria meleagris, native of England. So unusual people are puzzled by them:

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Phlox subulata that came with the house:
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Lamium maculatum. This one blooms all summer long of and on:
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Ajuga reptans:
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Leucojum aestivum :You and I have similar taste in our gardens. "Gravetye Giant". It multiplies faster than Daffodils:
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Barberis "Rose Glow":
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Anemone blanda:
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Muscari = quite fragrant up close:
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Apple blossoms:

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And of course, some of my Tulips & Daffodils:
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pitimpinai - thanks SO much for sharing all those gorgeous flowers!! Lots of folks are starved for color and texture and form this year after long months of monotonous cold/snow/ice, so your photos are a banquet for the senses.

That checkered lily is fascinating. I heard some Fritilaria smell like a skunk, does the checkered lily have a scent?

Beautiful pictures! pitimpina.

Lois, youe peony is in bloom already! Beautiful color combination.
Thanks, Lois, gardenweed & ladurose.
The fritillaria doesn't smell anything. It's not very tall, only about 12 - 18 ". If is were taller and closer to my nose I might detect something.

I stuffed my garden with plants, so I have something interesting to look at 12 months of the year. Of course, spring is the best & most interesting.

Oh, such gorgeous photos. Don't feel like taking any right now. I've got my beautiful double pink flowering crabapple I planted at least 30 years ago, a few daffodils, tulips, phlox, forget-me-nots, grape hyacinths, blue hyacinths are done, bleeding heart, a new cherry tree (lost the second one when they took out my huge tree).

One tip from the bulbs forum I learned to make tulips keep coming back (some won't). After they've bloomed in the spring, cut off all the stems but leave all the leaves to die back naturally. Then sprinkle with bloom booster when you cut the stems. In the fall sprinkle again. It seems to work and many have multiplied.

Actually I think I forgot the bloom booster last year but they look great.

Thanks to all of you for sharing your pictures of your beautiful flowers..you made my day!

Eileen, I saw some of the bluebells at a Gardening club member's house and she called them Va. bluebells and they look like yours; said they disappear after they finished blooming and return next Spring, so that might be the same reason yours disappeared or you thought that you had lost them.

Lois..my peonies have buds on them but still tight ones. It is supposed to be in 70's until Friday when we expect showers again.

Pitimipianai..you have a knack for growing such beauties, and I'd love to see pictures of your full yard in bloom again this year. Remember the white hydrangea cutting/seedling you sent me last year and my son asked for it? He has never taken it out of the large barrell and when he was here for Mother's Day, he told me it is still alive in that barrell. We haven't been over to his house since early last Fall. Guess I'll have to take some of my plants/seeds and plant over there. He loves flowers but forgets to water them, plus his work hours are so crazy plus he is taking a prerequesite to prepare him to go to Nursing school. He needs low maintence plants that will take care of themselves.

My Va, Blue Bells are in bloom right now, in a couple of weeks, they will die compleatly down to the ground,and come back up next spring.
cAROL

Such beautiful plants! Definitely needed to see these - the only things I have blooming are dandelions.

PV

pitimpinai, I think that first white drooping flower might be galanthus or snowdrops, but I'm not sure. You have a similar one with green tips and have it named something else.

I think I've got a whole bunch of jack-in-the-pulpits that germinated, 3 pointed first leaves. Not sure about those either. I'll scatter them around in shady spots because they might not all make it.

The JIP's are in a flat with cellpacks & pots where I planted the Virginia bluebells, and my log indicates nothing else was in that tray. I think I bought those from Prairie Moon, thanks to you, piti.

The peony that was blooming last week is a tree peony, which blooms earlier than regular garden peonies. The downside is that those gorgeous flowers are already almost done.

I just love VA bluebells. I have many plants but only 2 bloomed this year. I wonder if their ability to bloom is affected by their roots being disturbed.

pitimpinai, did you get a 100mm macro lens? Is there a reason you shot that daffodil at f22? Great closeups BTW, you've made wonderful progress. I just checked that one photo.

That frittilaria (sp?) is really one neat plant. It's amazing how you squeeze so much together, and it all looks great!

Nothing winter sown is blooming yet for me but it sure is growing! I bought a heliotrope a few weeks ago and boy it sure smells good! Bought mom a hanging basket yesterday of calabrachoa (million bells I think they're called?) and plenty of wildflowers here in bloom. You can really smell the autumn olive bushes (they're an invasive species though!) but I'm waiting on for the scent of roses and all the other nice flowers to fill the garden. I have a honeysuckle but it's the trumpet kind (the kind that the hummingbirds love but alas it's scentless). We also bought a red vein ekianthus bush that's in bloom. No fragrance but it sure is pretty.

Brad AKA Moonwolf

Noni,I'm making notes on some of your flowers.I never realized there were so many different primroses. That lanium maculatum that is light pink that you said it blooms all summer. Can they take the morning sun? I don't recognize that variety of forget-me-nots with the yellow centers. Is it the wonderful camera that you have that makes it look so large. I do have one that has grown kind of tall but I don't remember it having any yellow centers. I'll have to go out in my yard in the daylight tomorrow and look. The ones I sowed were called "Blue Bird" I think. Last years didn't get very big. I'm looking for some type of perennial that I can plant under or in front of my 3 rosebushes..something in blue, or yellow. One hot pink rose, one yellow and one coral. I had ice plant there but just dug it up because it was spreading into the rose bushes and my garden phlox, so I'm giving that away. Anything in front of the rose bushes would be getting the morning and early afternoon sun. Any suggestions?

Everything is about two weeks/ one month late here. But one of my favorite combinations is blooming now:
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Siberian Wallflower and Forget-Me-Not

Actually have a lot going on right now...
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Camera's on its way out; sorry - new one on the horizon. But what's in bloom now? Last of WS columbine - Texas Gold, Sunburst Ruby and Magpie. Pansies I planted from plants last fall - have bloomed pretty much non-stop since then. The miniature red rose my SIL gave me in memory of my brother. WS gaillardia - fluted type, like Fanfare - pretty excited these came out this way from seed. WS Heteropappus Blue Knoll. WS gaura, both white and pink. Salvia officinalis. Dianthus Raspberry Parfait, which I thought was an annual, but wintered over. Blackberries, snow peas, snap peas, and green beans. WS alyssum which started blooming in its container that I finally got planted out, LOL.

That's about all for the moment - Montauk daisy is budding (!), and daylilies as well.