Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Heralds of Spring

This week while dear husband and I were on our daily walk, we had our first sighting of buttercups.... a sure sign of spring in our little corner of the world! In fact, it is such an important event that the person who finds the first buttercup in our area takes it in to the local newspaper office and gets their name in our small town news. It has been several weeks since the first one was sighted, but this was our first. And it is good news....after a long winter!




The buttercups are placed in one of my tiniest vintage bottles, which I love to use as vases. This bottle is only 2 inches tall....the perfect size and scale for the diminutive buttercups. You can see in the background that today is a rainy day, with clouds hanging low on the mountains....




.....but not so yesterday! Yesterday was our first glorious, sunny, warm, short-sleeve kind of day. As I was out pruning my Graham Thomas rose (with my new Felco Pruner) I happened to look down.... and a wee bit of color caught my eye. It was a single violet bloom, surrounded by many tiny purple buds.


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Buttercups and Violets......yup, it's really Spring!



18 comments:

O.I.M said...

let's hear it for the buttercups and violets. That is so cool that the first buttercup makes the local paper. the world could use more good news like that.

I remember picking buttercups as a kid. we would hold the blossoms under our chins. If someone saw a yellow reflection they'd say "you like butter"

no blooms in Toronto...yet! But I can feel them coming on.

adorable "vase" by the way.

cheers
irena

Melanie Chopay said...

Connie, that little vase would be perfect for the snowdrops blooming here right now. I spent an hour or two in the garden today, I think I see spring at the end of the tunnel!

Mr. McGregor's Daughter said...

How great to have wildflowers in bloom - that vase is so perfect for the buttercups.

mightymatt1313 said...

Isn't it wonderful to see the wildflowers blooming.

Victoria Williams said...

Yay! Spring. Nice pics.

Shady Gardener said...

Wow. We won't have Spring for some time, yet. Happy days for you! :-)
And I'll enjoy returning to see what's happening out there.

Di DeCaire said...

No matter how many vases I have, I always end up using an old cream bottle. Nice seeing your spring flowers. None here, just lots of snow and more coming.

growingagardenindavis said...

We did the "butter" thing as kids, too. Your's made me feel happy about spring finally getting here and we don't even really have winter!

Marie said...

The buttercup is one of the first flowers here too. We don't go to the newspaper with the flowers, but we phone them when we've heard the first peewit/lapwing. They have just arrived, I heard them last week.
I think you should take your photo to the newspaper anyway, it's an amazing photo of spring...!

Chelle said...

This post makes me homesick.

Yolanda Elizabet Heuzen said...

Hurray for the violets and buttercups as thet certainly spell spring! What fun that the finders of the first buttercup of the year are mentioned in the local rag.

Randy said...

Isn't it wonderful how good just a tiny bit of color can make you feel?

Anonymous said...

Well, you are way ahead of us here in Maine. The buttercups are lovely. I don't think we have them here, but we do have the violets.

Catherine said...

Garlic is up, not as colorful as your buttercups and violets, but a sure sign to me that I'll be starting tomatoes soon. My new felco is a # 6 for my small hand, and I love it! Turning compost and digging around with the kids and taking the soil temp has consumed me of late. Let's put our eyes on each other when I return from Hawaii (leaving today). C

Andrea's Garden said...

Hello, you don't know how encouraging this post is for me. It is because you are writing about starting poppy seeds indoors. I have not had any luck just throwing them outdoors. This year I bought a number of different ones from Thompson & Morgan and really would like for them to grow. Maybe you could give me some tips on starting them and growing them? I would really appreciate that. You could stop by my blog or drop a mail to exile61@googlemail.com. Thank you! Andrea

Matron said...

I found a bank of wild violets near where I live last year. I'm not quite that old yet, but it was a struggle to get my nose that low on the ground to smell the perfume. Absolutely amazing perfume, and worth the creaking bones to get down there!

joey said...

Always a joy to visit, Connie, your post is a delight since my garden is still hidden (2-10 inches of snow predicted tonight). Wishing you a lovely spring ...

Anonymous said...

I especially like the photo of the buttercups on the window sill.