SPRING

The snowdrops are just glorious these days. I was finally successful in capturing a shot of them today. It feels like 60 outside in the sun today. The bees were out in force buzzing around the snowdrops completely ignoring my presence, as if after a long winter they have much better things to attend to. If you look carefully in both of the snowdrop pictures you can see bees at work.
Clumps of snowdrops are now visible all over the yard. I have always loved them more than crocus and the owners of this property prior to us put in scads of them. I also have daffodils which I am sure are up, but they are in the most boggy places in my yard. We have just had a week of rain, which followed a week of snow showers. Needless to say, I need a good pair of garden rubbers before I venture to all of the gardens.
I just love looking closely at the ground in spring. So much is going on and you can see every little thing, pebbles to sprouts to bugs. Above is my 'silver mound' sprouting it's first spring leaves. They are such an interesting shape. Fun for drawing especially if you are looking to draw graphic representations of nature. My favorite model for such drawing is Jane Sassaman.
A flock of titmice are chitting just above where I shot this photo. This is a shot of one of my strongest foxglove perennials. There are several planted in the half moon garden in the shadier areas under the dogwood and close to the stone wall. As they start shooting up and blooming they create a beautiful vignette in peach and yellow from the other side of the wall.
And with any luck, the giant alliums which are companion planted with the foxglove will be blooming at about the same time bringing a touch of purple to the garden. I peeked under the large foxglove leaves to find allium shoots beneath. Yay!
I have a couple of these 'coral bells' planted in the half moon garden too, along the wall. 'coral bells' have the sweetest spikes of tiny flowers but it is the shade of these leaves that I love the most about these plants. They stay a reddish, pinky shade all summer and fall.
My garden walk ended today on my deck, as I took stock of winter's harsh weather. My poor cactus does this each year during the winter months. It looks like someone has sucked all the water out of it, as if it were half dead. As the weather warms, it's arms will start to plump up and rise to it's usual shape and with any luck by May I will be seeing the most beautiful yellow flowers. It has grown in the past three years to a decent sized plant and is living in a large pot in a protected and sunny spot on the deck. I hope I never have to repot it as it's tiny cactus needles are nasty. I decided that as it is not a native plant it had to be planted high in a pot to keep native animals away from it's nasty thorns. I'm sure the chipmunks and mice will be all the happier without noses full of thorns.

I have been steadily working on 'Peter's World' bit by bit, hand-stitching one piece at a time. It's going slow. But I am determined to finish it this year! It is my #1 priority and thus everything else has stopped but it in the studio. I must remain focused and this is why you haven't seen any artwork. By April I hope to have all the stitching done on Peter so I can start on the wicker settee.

So I'll just keep stitching and writing here about my garden until I get it finished and can move on to other things in the studio which I can share in pictures......