Maybe It Really IS the Start of Spring?

First thing this morning, a cheerful voice on the radio prounounced that today is, "At long last, the first day of spring!"

I couldn't help but roll my eyes as I thought grumpily that hearing her chirp the words wasn't enough to make them true. Had she not noticed the fresh new blanket of snow that snuck in overnight and added an inch of white to my entire neighborhood? I had to scrape my car this morning before driving to work, after all.

After spending most of the day inside my hermetically sealed (or so it feels sometimes) office, I headed back to my car.

Lost in thought about things that need to get done tomorrow, I was halfway home before I noticed that the world around me was brown and grey. The sunshine had melted away the snow!

When I pulled back into my driveway, I noticed that small areas of snow still remained around the base of the bergenia (above) and there were larger piles yet near the mouth of the driveway. But as I bent down to count the flower buds on my 'Ivory Prince' hellebores, I found a bonus:
Tulip foliage!

I nosed around the front garden some more, finding fat buds on the oakleaf hydrangea, new reddish foliage at the tips of the euphorbias, and lots of deadleafing needed on my heucheras and foxgloves.

Near the 'Peach Flambe' heuchera, I found a few extra surprises... lilttle tufts of green that I would assume were resurrected crocuses if I didn't know that they had all died off or been uprooted by the resident chipmunk last season. (Perhaps he missed a few after all?)

The backyard was not as thrilling as the front yard, however. The driveway garden bed is in the shadow of dense beach tree branches in the morning, and then is shaded by the neighbor's house this early in the spring. It's still sporting a blanket of snow... so there was no way to check whether my daffodils are coming up there or not.

The winter aconites, snowdrops and grape hyacinths are so far no-shows as well, but I was encouraged to see new yellow-edged foliage on the stolen variegated iris.

And then... I found this. A beautiful hellebore--one of the hardy 'Pine Knot Strain' plants that survived no less than 4 moves in the past three years! It's not fully open yet, but when I tipped its face up toward the light it made me smile. Maybe it really is the start of spring after all.