An Early Spring: GBBD, May 2010

Spring has come to Maine early as a result of unusually warm weather in March and April. So despite frost and temperatures in the twenties during the past week, I have far more to show in mid-May than I have ever had before; almost every area of the garden has something in bloom.

The biggest show is happening on the back slope where flowers of self-sown sweet white violets (Viola blanda) nestle among the foliage of other plants, where the wild strawberries (Fragaria virginiana) are blooming, where the chives are starting to open, and where the rhododendron, which will soon be a mass of pink spilling down the slope, has begun to bloom.

In the back garden, the flowers on the viburnum at the edge of the woods are fading, one of my favorite spring flowers, Dicentra spectabilis, is blooming in the deck border, and the airy blue flowers of Linum perenne grace the blue and yellow border.

In the bedroom border at the front of the house, the moss phlox (Phlox subulata) is still putting on a show, and the earliest of the hardy geraniums, G. maculatum ‘Album’, has opened its first flowers. In the Iris border, which occupies a protected spot against a south-facing foundation, the first buds of Iris sibirica are about to open two weeks earlier than they ever have before.

To my delight, new buds are appearing every day on plants throughout the garden, promising a lush early summer display next month at this time.

Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day is hosted on the 15th of each month by Carol at May Dreams Gardens. Please visit her blog to see what is in bloom today in gardens around the world!