My Parents' Early Spring Yard Featuring Helleborus et al.

Took a day trip to Dayton to do a little pre-Easter family time and spent a good part of the day outside playing 3 rounds of Easter egg hunts with my nephews and talking plants with my dad. Here's a few of the photos I took of their yard - I don't have the specific variety names for most of these but I can describe them in general.

A variety of helleborus were in full bloom, these "lenten rose" lived up to their name since we're in lent right now I think. I should probably get one for my yard since they make great evergreen leaves and large perennial blooms when everyone else just has crocus and daffodil.

So, in addition to the great helleborus show, here are a few other notable features that caught my eye:

Coral bells holding color all winter, looks like they even put out some new leaves this Spring, bright lime green.

Winter aconite babies spreading like crazy (Eranthis heymalis)

Pachysandra ground cover flowering, or Japanese Spurge (Pachysandra terminalis)

Winter Aconite Blooming in February

This photo is from March of last year, but my mom just confirmed via text that my parents have winter aconite blooming in Dayton, Ohio as of Monday, February 8, 2016. That's crazy! It must have been the freaky warm winter that confused the early bloomers. I know they usually come up well before crocus, but February is a little nuts!

Here in central Indiana, we've been having heat waves too - with winter temps bouncing between the 50's and 20's. Also, when I was in Virginia, I saw bulbs emerging in January. It's going to be a weird Spring!

Winter aconite blooming in Dayton, Ohio (March 2015)

Winter Aconite Blooming in Ohio

My dad's winter aconite blooming in Ohio, well ahead of my crocus

My parents know I'm waiting for blooms here in Indiana, so guess what my dad just sent me! It's a photo of winter aconite [Eranthis hyemalis] with its petite yellow cups. The Missouri Botanical Garden profile lays it down with a slam against the later-blooming-crocus, "[Winter aconite] is a late winter bloomer (before crocus) that features cup-shaped, upward-facing, bright yellow, butter-cup like flowers."



I'm on day 6 of my crocus watch with a total of 5 sprouts, and noticed little partner sprouts next to the main emerging stems - but certainly nowhere near blooming.

This emerging crocus sprout has a buddy, can't tell if it's from the same bulb or not

Two of my emerging crocus bulbs have little brother sprouts coming up behind them and on the same day