Spring 2012, DAY2

We are enjoying these few days of beautiful warm weather, even though the long range forecast is for below average temperatures for most of the next two weeks.
The first crocus made their appearance today. They are a little group of C. tricolor that are in the bed just beside the house.

This group of snowdrops have popped up in the middle of the lawn.

All this warmth stimulated me to do a bit of reorganizing and cleaning up of the rather messy sun porch. Our overwintered plants really think spring has come with new growth and swelling buds the norm.
I did quite a serious cutback of some Buddleia that spent the winter inside. Perhaps Bill will persuade some of the cuttings to grow. There is a branch from a lanky young Bay Tree , as well. They can join those that are downstairs under lights.

I seem to have one large Rosemary plant that has survived for several years. Getting newer plants to survive being brought indoors to the sun porch has been an exercise in futility.
This is one of our "cloned" Blue Heaven rhodies, which did not get planted in the garden last season. Guess a bit of repotting and a later planting is in order. The new growth will emerge long before it is safe to put this outside. No telling if we can persuade two bursts of growth.

We also have several tissue culture plants that have been with us for a couple of years. There are two lovely little Pieris compacta, which will inevitably put forth their new growth while still indoors.

There are several pots of seedling Hellebores which we need to transplant. These have been having an identity crisis, since they look very different from most hellebores. They were from the ARHS Seed Exchange last year #089 H. argutifolius . We have also determined they may not be the hardiest of the genus either.

There are a couple of other pots that have some sprouts from another seed lot ARHS2011#90 H. foetidus ex 'Wester Flisk' , which have been pretty slow to germinate. 
We received a package from Lindenberg Seeds today with a bag of three nice Begonia tubers.(Double Pink). We have other things on order which will be along in due course. 

The seeds arrived several weeks ago. I expect it is just about time to get some of those started, as well.
The cats have been enjoying the sunshine and are getting into their in & out routine.
This is Ringo relaxing.

All in all, a pleasant day with not much snow in sight!