Late Winter Flowers in Bloom!

We had a couple of warm March days in the middle of the month. Definitely warm for both March and for Winter; it reached 75 degrees at the height of it on March 13th and 14th this year. I actually wore sandals on 3/14 and had the AC on in my hot car. It was quite nice. I prepped some of the planters, meaning I raked through the soil and removed weeds and debris and worked through the chunks of charcoal and the wood ash that Mark puts in the planters throughout the winter. They look pretty good and ready for seeds in May. During those 2 warm days, we also had quite a few things burst into bloom and on March 13th, I went around our whole property to photograph all that was in bloom on that one day. Here is a photo-essay of what I found blooming:

Down near the creek, in the ivy patch, is a new volunteer that appears to be a wild type of crocus. Its leaves highly resemble the leaves of our one small patch of planted crocuses, which pre-date us here, but this is the first time I have seen this yellow one. Also possible that a bulb washed down in one of our many high-water events and planted itself there.

The leaves in better view with their pale green stripe. The sun warms the flower up and they open like in the first picture.

 “Yellow Crocus is the essence for new beginnings, fresh starts, new joy after the trials of Winter have left us. It offers you new energy and helps you to emerge playfully from the introspection of the dark cold months of Winter.” (From: https://sacredessences.com/yellow-crocus/)

Here is the patch of purple crocuses at the base of the Kentucky Coffee Tree. They have bloomed here every year since we have been here (we did not plant them), but this year, they bloomed quite abundantly. I have not seen this many before. This is a picture taken at 10 AM, and in the next picture you can see that they have opened up to the warm sun, about 2 hours later. This picture also clearly shows that narrow, “grass-like” leaf with its pale green stripe down the center. This one is also surrounded by that highly invasive “Lesser-Celandine”, which grows like crazy for a couple months then dies back.

And here is the same group shortly after noon on the same day, open in all their gorgeous glory. Aren’t they spectacular? And my cell-phone camera has amazingly picked up the detail in the petals. Good for you, Tracfone, good job.

Since I mentioned the “Lesser Celandine”, I may as well add that to the day’s pictures, as it is currently growing in great abundance all over the property. I wish there was something useful you could do with Lesser Celandine, like maybe even feed it to the chickens. It starves out grass and invasively grows wherever, however, does have a pretty yellow flower (in the Buttercup Family), at it’s season height. Fortuntately dies back after Spring.

This beautiful little blue flower blooms copiously throughout the yard and garden beds, and they are so small, it was hard for my cell-phone camera to focus on them. Each flower is only about 1/4″ wide.
I looked it up via “Google-Lens” and came up with Persian Speedwell or Bird’s-Eye Speedwell. Can be used for the treatment of rheumatism. Good to know, we have enough of it. Maybe the chickens will enjoy eating.

Vinca Minor or Perriwinkle, of course, which some consider invasive, but I think it makes a great ground cover. Vinca is growing in our beds front and sides of property and expands its territory a bit every year. I love the color of Perriwinkle. We got quite a bit of it from someone who was tearing out their Vinca due to its invasive nature. It competes with the ivy to crawl along, we will see who wins, but I think they can coexist.

Pachysandra, currently in bloom, and this covers the entire patch in the front of our house, so thankfully an area we don’t have to mow, or do much maintenance on at all. I don’t even rake away the maple leaves that cover it every fall, as they work their way down and mulch into the soil. The house came with this planted, and it spreads every year, and I find it sometimes growing in odd distant places.

This will blossom into a beautiful salmon-colored flower later in the Spring, similar to an apple blossom, as this is a Quince plant and produces an extremely tart, green “apple-like” fruit at the end of its season. We have 2 Quince bushes on the side of the house and they came with the property.

And last, but not least, the daffodils finally started to open in this warm weather, and these are the first of them. They add a bright, cheerful flash of sunny yellow to our front, and these I did plant (and relocate from other parts of the yard).