Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - March 2018

Welcome to Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day for March 2018.

Here in my USDA Hardiness Zone 6a garden in central Indiana, we are in the ping-pong stage of changing seasons.

After several days of remarkable spring-like weather in late February—days I spent potting up pansies and violas and feeling behind in cleaning up the garden—the weather turned back to winter and I was scrambling to find my coat again.

Yet in spite of the on again off again warm weather, the blooms have been coming forth. Some days the flowers look pretty good. Some days they look pathetic. On those days, if flowers had wishes, they probably wished they had waited a few more days.

I looked back at last year's bloom day post for March and was not surprised to read the same story.  Warm, cold, warm, cold.  It's how spring arrives.

Anyway, without further comment on spring, because I know others have far worse weather woes, here are some blooms in my garden in mid-March.

Up top is Crocus 'Pickwick'. One of my favorites because of the purple veins.

I planted quite a few of them last fall but they seem to have come up as all white.

Hmmm... I need to find my order form and perhaps send a nice note to the company I bought these from to find out if they made a mistake.

Another white flower is this double-flowering snowdrop. Galanthus something or other.  A keeper for sure, though to see the double petals you have to get down on your knees and gently lift the nodding flowers.  Perhaps that is by design?

The first of the daffodils started blooming a week or so ago. These are miniatures. They look pretty good consider they have been snowed on a couple of times. I usually dig up some of them later in the spring once they are done flowering and move them about a bit.

A new yellow flower in my garden is Winter Aconite, Eranthis hyemalis.  Yes, that is a light dusting of snow on them as of this morning.

Here's a better picture of the Winter Aconites taken later in the afternoon when the sun had coaxed them open, along with some Iris reticulata.

Nearby are some Syberian Squill, Scilla siberica.  I've been feeding peanuts to the blue jays all winter long, which is why the little blue squills are surrounded by peanut shells. I'm going to clean all those up and stop feeding the blue jays this spring.

Out in the back lawn, the early waves of crocuses, which were mostly light purple and white, have faded and now these darker purple crocuses are coming on strong.  There have been crocus blooms in the lawn since Feb. 9th which means over five weeks of blooms and still going. I'll probably plant another thousand or so crocuses this fall.

There are some clumps of crocuses in the flower beds, too.

And on the front porch, the violas I planted on February 27th, to go with the pansies I planted on February 20th, are happy to be next to the brick on these cold winter nights. Or are they spring nights now?

Oh, and what is this bloom?

It's  my second book, (Bookus carolii 'Homegrown and Handpicked') getting some sun on a sunny afternoon.

What's blooming in your garden as we make the transition from winter to spring? We'd love to have you show us for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day. It's easy to participate. Just post on your blog about the blooms in your garden on or around the 15th of the month. Then leave a comment below to tell us what you have blooming and put a link in the Mr. Linky widget so we'll know how to get to your post.

And always remember...

"We can have flowers every month of the year."  ~ Elizabeth Lawrence