The Bleeding Heart is not a native flower, but it blossoms say spring to me. As a kid, I would pull the outer pink petals off to reveal the inner heart. But one of its other common names is “lady-in-a-bath”, which comes from the shape when held upside down and the outer petals are only pull at a 90 degree angle and the two halves form the tub with the lady sitting in the middle. But since I never pulled them partway, it was not a name I associated with the flowers.
The Bleeding Heart
April showers are supposed to bring May flowers, but it also makes the few brave April flowers a little wet, like these Siberian squills, a native plant of southwestern Russia, the Caucasus, and Turkey (but not native to Siberia). The blue color helps brighten a rainy day but it is becoming invasive in Midwestern United States.
Showers on Siberian Squills
A late April Sunday walk through the woods would be nice to search for wildflowers, but today it was a bit chilly and the ground still soggy plus the late spring has very few wildflowers open yet. I did find a “wild” flower on my lawn though. Snow Glory, also called Glory-of-the-Snow, is a small bulb-producing plant native to western Turkey and garden centers sells this ornamental bulb. I had some planted in my retaining wall beds, but now they have escaped, relocating on different areas of my lawn, even up a steep hill.
Wild Flower
April showers are supposed to bring May flowers so with all the rain making the ground rather soggy, there should be a abundance of blossoms (if the flowers weren’t washed away yesterday).
Maybe Flowers Soon
Another day of snowfall adding to the snow pack of a foot makes it impossible to see any spring flowers if they previously had poked their noses up out of the ground. It is hard to remember it is spring when it looks like winter.
Where Have All The Flowers Gone
April showers bring May flowers. Hopefully the rain showers will bring some flowers, but at least today’s rain took some more of the snow away as I wait for the new blossoms.
Smiling Flowers
The sunshine melted some of the roads and even some hints of ground was showing where the plows scraped along the road shoulders. Green foliage and purple blossoms won’t be seen for a while especially with another snow storm coming tomorrow.
Green and Purple
The light snow today was creating a new white layer on the ground, reducing color from the landscape during the winter months so it will be a while before there will the range of color bursting out in the yard.
Colorful Summer Flowers
There isn’t much color out again today with the cloudy skies and the trees covered in frost again. The goldfinches are still eating the Black-eyed Susan seed heads but the flowers do not have their summer glorious colors.
Summertime Susans
My hardy little violas were not hardy enough to survive the near zero temperature overnight so they looked rather sad and wimpy. And so with the last of my flowers gone for the season, it probably will be another six months before snow glories like these can emerge when the snow melts in the spring.
Half Year Wait
