Six on Saturday – 09MAR2024 – Breakthrough

Chris Mousseau

Our winter, the warmest on record, it seems, is stuttering to an end with up and down temperatures, not enough moisture, buds breaking open and bulbs pushing through. Here are six things spotted in my garden yesterday – to see sixes in other parts of the world head over to Jim’s site, Garden Ruminations.

We’ll start with buds bursting: lilac on the left and Sambucus on the right. Buds are swelling and showing colour on most trees and shrubs now and it won’t be long before browns and greys give way to green green green…

Several ornamental Allium species are evergreen or semi evergreen here – sending up new leaves in the fall which don’t die back over the winter. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising then that the first perennial edibles to pop up are also Alliums. I could be eating the greens from these onions now if I wanted, and the tender tips of the chives are already quite tasty. I won’t harvest garlic until mid-July, although their scapes will be ready before the end of spring.

Egyptian Walking Onion
Chives
Garlic

Snowdrops started blooming more than a month ago and now carpet (sort of…) the woodland garden. They’re the only thing in bloom (Crocus and Eranthis don’t do that well here…) but many other bulbs have broke through the soil and are showing promise…

Hyacinth
Muscari – Grape Hyacinth
Tulips and Daffodils

Perennials are showing signs of life as well – I saw new growth on Nepeta, Chrysanthemum and Dicentra yesterday, and here’s Hylotelephium spectabile – Sedum spectabile forever for many of us!

Finally, it’s not just flora that’s breaking dormancy these days. There’s been lots of chipmunk activity in recent weeks, and a few of the youngsters are quite adventurous, including this fellow (Maybe) watching me watching him…have a great weekend everyone!

33 Comments

    1. Well we will, of course, snow even. Last frost isn’t until mid-May, usually. Most of the spring bulbs will be fine though – they’re used to it. It’s flower buds on grape vines and on fruit and other trees that are easily damaged by the late frosts.

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  2. It’s crazy how much it looks like the stage of the plants here. The walking onions, the chives, the lilac buds, all of these are at exactly the same stage, which shows that you’ve had a much warmer winter than other years.

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    1. That is crazy! February broke all kinds of records for being warm this year, the Great Lakes were not frozen over, it’s been relatively dry… not good signs for spring and summer gardening, I’m afraid.

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  3. Here, too, (about 25 miles south of Boston), looks about the same. Have enjoyed the dainty snowdrops this past week, daffodils are up 6″, saw 2 deep yellow crocuses blooming, yesterday…hopefully no 🐰 will eat them, like last year….so I raked that garden. Chives & walking onions are greening & also some of the alliums are up & sedum. Fun to make new growth discoveries. At least 50 geese flew over our street about 15 min ago. Enjoy your Spring!

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  4. & have heard and seen crows, no chipmunks, more than enough rain (pump goes on) & parsley planted last year is still growing & columbine shoots have started.

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  5. It’s always fun to see the emergence of plants ‘up north.’ I well remember the excitement of seeing the first tulip pushing up, or bud break on the trees. Our various wild onions and garlics are beginning to bloom; they’re always fun to see. We don’t have chipmunks, though — to my great regret!

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  6. Lovely photos, Chris, and I am amazed to see your garden’s development so close to ours at the same time, with so much latitude between us. I’m also noticing chives and garlic up in parts of our garden but didn’t think to photograph them. It looks like you may still have freezing nights, from the appearance of your groundcover. We expect to go back to the mid-thirties this week coming, but no frosts in the long range forecast. It is exceptionally early for us to be frost-free here, but it has been such a warm winter, hasn’t it? Thank you for visiting Forest Garden. You have a lovely site here.

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  7. The only chipmunk I’ve seen was also in Ontario when I visited my nephew a few years ago, we don’t have them over here in the UK. Lovely to see all your bulbs pushing through, soon you will have colour everywhere! We have been told that we have just had the warmest February ever and the wettest one since 1836, I can believe it, it has been so wet!

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  8. It’s so exciting to see fresh buds on trees & shrubs – and new foliage emerging from the soil. They’ll all provide your garden with some beautiful spring blooms very soon and I’ll be looking forward to seeing it.

    I’ve got to say – I adore your photo of the little chipmunk!

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  10. Is winter when most of the precip falls there? It is the reverse here, but we had a very rainy winter blamed on El Nino. Who knows? It is wonderful to see spring bursting through, I hope the chipmunk doesn’t eat anything inappropriate.

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  11. What is a chipmunk? Is it a type of squirrel? They are supposedly native here, but so rare that I never see them. Our elderberries are leafed out, but ‘Madonna’ is sort of wimpy. I want it to do well so that ‘Black Lace’ has a pollinator.

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  13. I bet all those little shoots appearing are making you smile Chris. And the chipmunk is a cutie, just hope he doesn’t nibble on any of those new shoots!

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  14. Too warm here as well. Chives, bulbs, lilacs, sambucus, check, check, check, check. Finished my class this weekend on Environmental Law, so I can get back to enjoying the outdoors! and taking part in SOS! We had almost no snow this winter, so it will be interesting to see how our drought progresses. I see a little green on some of my early blooming natives.

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  15. Your winter ending is very similar to ours, it seems. Lots of promise with new plants, but a dramatic up and down transition from winter to spring. We are breaking warmth records, and then suddenly we getting cold days again. Strange winter, for sure.

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