From HinTN:
Ask and you shall receive. Here’s a little tour of what’s blooming in my yard on 16 March 2025.
This is a view of the feral daffodils on the hillside below the house. They escaped from the garden of Aunt Lizzie Long, the matriarch of the family that owned this property from land grant to the time she sold it to my grandfather. There’s a similar, but much larger, herd in the woods and along the creek to the east of my property. My mother and her sister took us kids every Spring to tromp through the woods on the “daffodil walk.”
This is a look back at the source of that creek in the previous picture. The cave is commonly known as Blowing Spring because in the summer it fills that bowl with nice cool air.
Mrs H introduced those Hellebores on that hillside below the house and they have invasively thrived. Coming soon in that green patch beside the creek will be Virginia Bluebells.
Looking east toward the other arm of the Cumberland Plateau, which with the ridge behind the house forms the head of the holler. I planted those forsythia years ago. They get huge and sprawly and I have to take a firm hand to them every five years or so.
You can’t really see it but the red quince is just starting to bloom.
A few of the daffodils in the yard.
Top photo: The big yellow guy is a King Alfred. I’ve got them everywhere but the polar vortex put a hammer to them this year.
The narcissus are just the sweetest things. It’s time to divide them.
The big white trumpet is a Mt. Hood. They’re not as prolific af the King Alfreds. I divided most of them last year so there are very few blooms. They are magnificent when the stand gets established.
These are two looks at the sulangea that almost every year heralds a freeze. The prognosis is that this long slow Spring gives it a fighting chance at a full bloom.
Out on the highway there used to be a huge one of these. It had been shaped early not to be a bush and when that purple tree bloomed in the 70s it was astonishing. This one’s always going to be sprawly bushy thing.
Finally, here’s a look at a row of Bridal Veil that got infested with honeysuckle and had to get a severe haircut two years ago. It’s just getting its legs under it but will be a six foot high hedge before you can say “Bob’s your uncle.” Also a row of iris, daffodils and some summer grasses, plus a bonus view of another forsythia. It’s one of the first two I planted here so many years ago.
Happy Spring from middle Tennessee.
***********
We’ve got the first daffodil buds in our warmest south-facing microclimate bed (in front of the heat-shedding basement window), but no actual blooms yet.
What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?
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eclare
Very nice walk! My daffodils have been open for at least a week, maybe longer.
satby
Surrounded by flowers on your wall that go back to your ancestors is a fine thing HinTN!
The only flower open for me are my earliest crocus, and they spend most of their days closed against the chilly weather. Everything else is taking it’s time. Some years the blooms have come and nearly gone in unseasonable warmth, so I won’t complain.
Kosh III
Hello from Warren County!
Lovely pics, daffys are always a good sign of warmer times.
We don’t yet have anything as the house we bought just has a small flat grass yard but we’re working on it!!
Gvg
Those are probably “real” king Alfred’s. Years ago the bulb suppliers started substituting any close yellow daffodil for King Alfred’s because the real thing had become rare, and people have been complaining ever since that it doesn’t live up to it’s reputation. You could probably sell some extra’s to local gardeners for charity fund raisers or garden events if you chose so that some of the real thing would get back into circulation. Have the daffodil society experts check it, and if it is, maybe offer some to the heirloom bulb growers? It’s also one of the few that is supposed to do well in the Deep South which is why I read up on it some years ago.
There are a few that like Florida fine. Paper whites are the easiest though. I do love this time of year. Especially the fragrant flowers that bloom. And new fern growth is uncurling in the woods. Pass a long plants from family are special as are big increases from little starts you planted yourself years ago. Yesterday my aunt and I were discussing family pass along of azaleas, camellias and crinums and how long ago she planted hers from her mom (my grandmother) . She wants me to find room for a few more and complains her daughter doesn’t garden and lives in a HOA neighborhood. I pointed out it was never too late for the gardening bug to bite. My sister who ignored all that until the last few years has in her 50’s suddenly become interested. I am finding that twist amusing.
HinTN
@Kosh III: Warren County is just up the road from us. It’s beautiful country. Enjoy making that flat patch of grass something special.
HinTN
@Gvg: Oh my word, I’ve got King Alfred’s out the wazoo. I had so many one year I planted a row in the orchard. I will check with a local plant society to see if they want some. Thanks for the tip.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
JeanneT
My first crocuses have bloomed and tulips, hyacinths and scillas are leafing out. My early blooming viburnum ‘Pink Dawn’ is just opening it’s buds – I’ll be setting out later to enjoy the scent of the blossoms. I don’t recommend that cultivar, because it doesn’t fruit and it suckers like crazy, but the scent is truly lovely….
SkyBluePink
Lovely photos and beautiful property !
Daffodils in full bloom here along with star magnolia, weeping cherry and flowering quince. Redbuds just beginning. Wisteria full of blooms- hoping this years blooms won’t be bitten by late frost.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Beautiful. It’s a little early for flowers here, but it won’t be too long.
Kristine
Lovely photos. Many thanks.
No full flowers yet here in NE Illinois, but the Pink Fizz hellebore buds are poking up through the leaves. I planted it a while ago—pretty sure it’s been at least 10 years—and these last few years the clump has really started to spread. Last I checked there was even a single bud a foot or so from the main plant, so I’m crossing my fingers that a new clump is developing.
Daffodils are a couple of inches tall. Iris greenery is just starting to show here and there under the leaf cover. Pussy willow catkins have formed—I hope it’s warm when they open because the scent is deep and rich and draws all kinds of bees as well as the early butterflies.
I’m so ready for Spring.
They Call Me Noni
Here in southern Indiana I’ve been cutting daffodils for a week now. Years ago I bought a couple of super sacks from one of the online bulb companies and planted them just at the edge of the woods. Gives a nice bit of cheer out back while everything else is still looking dreary but showing signs of spring promise. The hyacinths and tulips will be next to bloom. I have them in raised beds with cages over them because while the woods are lovely they are home to voracious squirrels and rabbits. We are very glad to enjoy warmer weather. Our winter was brutal.
MagdaInBlack
@Kristine: I had pussy-willows on the “farm” and yes! so many bees you can hear the hummmmming of wings.
Here in Arlington Heights yesterday I noticed trees are taking on that faint greenishness they get just before buds pop.
I’m ready for spring too.
NotMax
The Flowers That Bloom In The Spring.
;)
lowtechcyclist
@satby:
But does he count them? ;-)
Here in my corner of southern Maryland, the daffodils are in full bloom. The forsythia’s gamely trying to wake up but isn’t quite there yet, and we still have some crocuses in bloom.
The cardinals have finally shown up in the bush outside my window in the past five or six days. There’s one very bright fellow sitting there right now.
@rikyrah:
Good morning!
Suzanne
Those daffodils are lovely! Yellow flowers absolutely fill me with happiness.
This weekend has turned out to be exceptionally cold and crappy weather-ful. I got excited last weekend about Spring….. got the porch and outdoor furniture all cleaned up, weeded the garden, bought a couple of new pots….. and yet the plants aren’t out at the garden store yet. I’ll be traveling for work this week, so hopefully next weekend will be better!
mrmoshpotato
@satby: Enjoying our second winter?
Jeffg166
I am having a very slow start this year or a lot of things died. I should know in the next few weeks.
Trivia Man
Some green just starting to poke up.
Downy woodpecker is back – every day he hammers on the metal flashing around the brick chimney. Usually about dawn, he says hi to the neighborhood fir about 20 seconds then moves on. I like it but im the inly one.
HinTN
@lowtechcyclist: Take me waaaaay back! Except I was too young to smoke cigarettes when I was watching Captain Kangaroo.
Jackie
Springtime garden posts have me acutely missing Ozark…😢
Baud
@Jackie:
Someone mentioned carpenters yesterday and Ozark came immediately to mind.
Baud
My weeds haven’t come in yet. Should be any day now.
rosalind
ah, daffodils! when i first moved into my house, i – who could not keep even one houseplant alive up til then – began a journey of discovery as i watched my garden of raised beds that surrounded my home blossom throughout the seasons. as i walked along the path to my backyard one spring day, i stopped in amazement to see on what had been a nondescript patch of earth a field of yellow daffodils smiling back.
when i needed to re-do this area, i dug up the bulbs and replanted them, having no idea if that would work, but next spring there they were, greeting me from the other side of the house.
Trivia Man
Planted a dozen phlox yesterday, it said they are fine even when get the last few snowstorms. Supplemental to the tulip beds plus a couple more by the front sidewalk.
MagdaInBlack
@Baud: Same.
HinTN
@Baud: Hope Springs a Turtle
WaterGirl
@rosalind: The person who planted all of that when it was their house would surely be happy to know that you have kept everything and that it has brought you much joy.
HinTN
@MagdaInBlack: @Baud:
Truth
HinTN
@WaterGirl: Just want to let you know that I love the daily picture you post!
WaterGirl
@HinTN: Thank you! About to put up today’s right now.
eclare
@Baud:
I know. I hope his wife is doing OK, it sounded like he did most of the maintenance on their house and yard.
Jackie
WaterGirl, do you ever hear from Mrs. Ozark? This time of year must be extra hard on her…
comrade scotts agenda of rage
We had a little bluff trail between our house and our old B&B back in Central Misery. Wooded and full of daffodils which was always a harbinger that the cold, damn and gray winter was coming to an end.
Here in Denver, it’s endless sunshine with late-blooming daffies, not as many and they struggle.
Everything’s a trade off.
pieceofpeace
What a lovely property – and I’m smitten with the white daffodil – thank you for this springtime beginning.
satby
@mrmoshpotato: not really 😂
H.E.Wolf
Beautiful springtime photos – thank you!
Anthony
The tulips and daffodils in Memphis’s Dixon Gallery and Gardens are off to a fine start too, went there yesterday.
eclare
@Anthony:
Did you also catch the cherry blossoms? Peak is supposed to be this weekend. I love those trees.
stinger
HinTN: You are east and south of me, but as a fellow Midwesterner I can recognize/intuit your plants and your tasks and issues with them over the years. I’ve had crocuses in bloom for three days now, with other bulb plants making promises. I removed my forsythia several years ago because it was so unmanageable; I’ve read that cultivars exist that are more ruly, so I may try again. We too are having a slower spring, which I hope will mean no late killing frosts.
Thanks for the lovely photos!
Glidwrith
Redbud is blooming in San Diego, grape plants are popping their leaves, mulberry has its flowers out, a neighbors dwarf peach tree has bloomed and gone, the garlic has been putting up leaves for a month now.
I will have to check how the new passion fruit vine is doing, the Australian lime just looks thorny.
Kristine
@lowtechcyclist:
Cardinals here have been so noisy for weeks. So many different songs.
Kristine
@HinTN: A hearty second!
Kristine
@MagdaInBlack: I’ve noticed that common milkweed flowers have a similar scent. Rich and deep.
StringOnAStick
Crocus blooming here at home in central Oregon and the earliest mini daffodils (Tete a Tete, now I just love so much) are getting close to blooming. We just got back from the coast where the yellow daffodils have naturalized in many open fields and highway medians; gorgeous.
RaflW
Forsythia (like in pic 4 on the OP) always make me think of my mom. When we lived in the NE (PA, then later CT) for a few years, she would get out and nip some stems and put them in vases in the house as soon as they bloomed.
After cloudy, damp and often dark winters, these first harbingers of spring were very important to her. No doubt her growing up just a couple degrees south of the arctic circle* in Sweden had a lifelong impact on her tolerance for the short days of Nov-Feb.
*Dec 21st: 4h 17m of sunlight. But with a max solar altitude of 3º, that daylight woulda been very wan.
MagdaInBlack
@Kristine: I’ve always thought common milkweed flowers to be beautiful.