Spring Garden

    It seems like it was just yesterday that it was autumn and I was planting spring bulbs in my garden and anticipating their arrival.  Suddenly, the spring season is upon us here in the Willamette Valley, and I'm feeling like all those moments between then and now have gone by entirely too quickly.  Now that I am getting back into the swing of taking photographs of, well, everything, I thought it would be fun to share both the early stages and the current happenings in my spring garden. 

In the first picture above you can see that these purple crocuses were only too happy to show themselves.  They've been a part of my garden for a few years now and appear to be spreading - there were only one or two last year, but now there are many more.  The muscari and yellow crocuses below, on the other hand, are some of the bulbs I mentioned planting last fall, and are just now getting established. The one thing I've learned about bulbs is - wait.

Daffodils are up next - they arrive right after the crocuses.  I love this bright yellow color - it livens up the garden and best of all, I can see them from my kitchen sliding glass door.  There is nothing quite like a cup of coffee and some flower viewing as the sun rises.

All these flowers coming alive in my garden reminds me that I forget that trees that don't appear to have flowers, such as maples and oaks, actually do bloom.  Jimmy reminded me of this one time.  So as to not neglect those flowers, here is a photo of his maple tree, with its tiny maroon and red flower blossoms.  So interesting!

I love gardening days this time of year... waiting for the rain clouds to break, then heading out into the fragrant air with your raincoat and mud boots on, then not caring when it begins to rain again, because you are just having too good a time digging, planting, and pulling weeds.  We had just such a day recently when I took this photo of the wheel barrow.  Such good memories..

I'm saving the best for last... tulips!  I'm starting to love the variety of them occurring here, and the fact that they have almost entirely surrounded the maple tree.  I think this coming autumn I will be planting just a few more bulbs and will have achieved full tulip heaven in this spot.

Thank you for visiting my garden and please stop by again.  And if you have a garden you would like to share, leave me a comment with your link!