At left is my Forsythia shrub this week. It’s not doing as well as in past years. I don’t know if it’s because of our unusually cold winter/spring or if I didn’t give it enough water or fertilizer last year. I don’t think I’ve given it fertilizer since maybe 2006. I’ll have to change that this year. This flowering plum is the earliest flowering of all the flowering or fruit trees I have. I need try pruning this tree this year to thin out some of the crowded branches.

The blooms below show my penchant for purple. I really need to branch out to other colors a little more! On the first row, there is Vinca minor at left, also called Periwinkle. It’s a great, vigorous groundcover. I have it by my fruit trees. On the right is Arabis caucasica, or rockcress. This was transplanted last year from my mother-in-law’s place when she sold the house. It’s drought tolerant, I believe, and I had another clump that I think died last year from too much water.

On the second row left is Muscari, or grape hyacinth. On the right is Anemone blanda, or Grecian windflower. It’s a bulb, and these flowers are very small. I wish they were a little bigger and would spread a little faster and wider.

Everything is a little later blooming than normal, because our spring has continued to feel like winter. They say it’s a “La Nina” weather pattern that’s made us so cold this year.  It’s not like we got severe low temps, just that the low temps we’ve had have lasted a long time, and the snow lasted on the ground an amazingly long time this winter.