More Signs of Spring

 

We are a month into Winter, a month past Solstice. Things are happening in the garden, and I am noticing the almost hour of more daylight each day now. 

Snow Drops and Witch Hazel aren't really spring flowers; they are winter blooms, but any blooms are signs of spring to me. 

The Snow Drops will take their time opening and be a tease right outside my window. They will be joined soon by the blooms of hardy winter Cyclamen.

Nearby the tiny blooms of the Sarcococca are fragrant and overhead the Witch Hazel is blooming.

The blooms are sparse because the shrub doesn't get enough sun, but these plants in my winter garden are all visible from my windows.

Tom is back outside as I type. It's cloudy and gray today but the last two days he had sunshine as he worked to clean out beds. Today he's cutting back the clematis vines and the hydrangeas. The yard waste bins that were emptied by the truck yesterday will soon be filled up again. It's winter pruning time. 

Everything is looking so tidy. I love it.

This is the kind of work I have always done, crawling around on the ground, up close and personal with what's emerging new from the dirt even as we clean up the old. I miss it.

Maybe next year.