Purple crocuses.

White and purple crocuses.

After several years of hoping, my crocus bed is now full of crocuses! It’s nice to be greeted at the sidewalk steps by perky little flowers when returning from our walks. The daffodils are budding, and we have the first flower along the side of the house. I’m going to do my best to map the types we have this year in order to better group and arrange them in future seasons. That requires brain power, though, so don’t hold your breath.

First Ice Folly daffodil with a very cold, possibly dead, bee on it.

In making the inspection of the front beds, the biggest casualty was the lavender. I suspect that most of the stress actually happened last year during our two blizzards when it was buried under feet of snow and ice. Nonetheless, the die-off this year was bad and I had to prune nearly half the plant. (It probably didn’t help that I failed to appropriately prune it in the fall.) That was sad, but what’s left is healthy and I’m hoping it will bush out again this year. The front sidewalk bed is in decent shape, with everything coming up green. I’ve decided that this is the year I am going to really move ahead with converting the yard to natives and a select few non-invasives. More about this in a later post, but what this means for the sidewalk bed is bye-bye orange daylilies. You’re cheery and hardy and send up green shoots nice and early, but you are one of the devils of the Southeast and you need to go!

Healthy lavender sprig, post- massive pruning of dead bits.

Sedum growing into phlox.