The Big Thaw

Today was a gorgeous late winter day: Mid 40s, blue skies, sunshine. The snow that did not melt yesterday had disappeared by the time I got home from work today, save the large drift by my back fence. It is still a good 15 inches tall, mostly because that area is so dark in winter due to the severe angle of the sun.

I grabbed my camera and went out to see what the thaw would reveal about my plants. Here was the bergenia, flat as a pancake on Friday when I first saw it but slowly recovering from the inner to the outer leaves. It's such a great color that even when it looks terrible like this, it still looks good to me.

And the small sprouts of variegated Jacob's Ladder that had bravely emerged in early January are still there, looking none the worse for their snowy hibernation. Skeletons of bronze fennel are still amazingly upright by the side of the porch, and the silver leaves of sage are glowing beside the reddish leaf buds of 'Voodoo' sedum.

The plant spotting that I was most excited about eluded me photographically... but all three of my purple clover (trifolium repens var. atropurpureum) are coming back! I think that they must have heard me grumble that I'd tried them for two years now and I wasn't going to replant them in 2007. Who says threats don't work on plants?!

Thanks to everyone who has commented on the previous post about gardening phases. I haven't had time to get mine all together yet, but I also wanted to give more people time to chime in before I post. Reading your comments has been lots of fun...