Spring Has Sprung

Hellebore blooms greet me in my St. Louis garden today!

It's all about the flowers!  'White Lady' (Helleborus x hybridus) is blooming in my backyard garden today.  She is nothing short of spectacular.  To really appreciate her, you must bend down to the little foot-tall plant and angle her nodding blossoms upward. But when very little else is going on in an early-March backyard garden in Missouri, the effort is, well, worth the effort.

I recommend that anyone try a small massing of this or other perennial hellebores in the front of borders that will be shaded come late spring and summer (hellebore leaves stay green year-round but thrive in shade).  Even in February you may find it blossoming (great cut flowers, too)!  More hellebore assets are detailed beautifully by the Missouri Botanical Garden's "Plantfinder" Web site, at http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/gardens-gardening/your-garden/plant-finder/plant-details/kc/c846/helleborus-x-hybridus-white-lady.aspx.

Another spring delight is one that I manufacture out of a little potting soil and some bulbs, in fall. I put the two together in a few big pots and haul them into my frost-free garage in late September. They only get watered a couple of times through the winter.  I haul them back out and water them well this time each year. And, at my back door, they make everything look more like spring (first day is March 20, but the average last frost date here is April 15, so I have to be wary).

Blooms in pots from last year, planted the previous fall and stored in a frost-free garage, make a debut in early spring.

A clutch of crocuses this year!

Perhaps best of all is catching the spring scene at the lushly planted, 79-acre Missouri Botanical Garden, just about four miles away from my house.  Locally, it's known as Mobot or Shaw's Garden (for the founder, Henry Shaw). When I first started gardening, it was my home away from home, for inspiration and R&R.

Three tight tulip blooms at Mobot that I captured one cold and rainy day.

Tulips that are further along,  around reflecting pools in the center of the garden (in front of a geodesic dome called the Climatron.) Floaters are called "onions" and are by glass artist Dale Chihuly. I shot this scene one recent spring...

...and a view from the other direction in early summer of the same year, just for reference, with the Climatron in the distance.

Finally, I'm back to white (my favorite spring color!) this time, in a star magnolia (at Mobot (http://www.missouribotanicalgarden.org/gardens-gardening/your-garden/plant-finder/plant-details/kc/l130/magnolia-stellata.aspx).

Spring is one of the very best times of year to be in St. Louis -- so fresh, so cool, so darned inviting!!!