Oh, Spring Thou Art Coming!

"Oh, Spring thou art coming! in fact thou art here. Oh, Spring. 

Grim Winter is going; in fact he is gone; oh, Spring!

Rejoice all ye maidens, rejoice all ye men;

 For Spring, gentle Spring has returned after a year of protracted absence. Amen."

   Wonderful things have been happening just in the last few days! We had so much snow and it was so bitterly cold at the beginning of this month, I thought we were in for another late spring, but what I seem to forget each year is that spring in Maine is completely unpredictable - and when it does  come everything happens so fast! The ground really didn't have a chance to freeze much at all this winter due to the deep snow cover from early November on. So, as the glaciers retreat, I am finding that many of my plants knew it was spring and have already been growing underneath the snow! The Snow Crocuses (Crocus chrysanthus) have truly been living up to their name...this is what greeted me on Sunday when the snow had just started to melt from off my herb garden!

The last couple of days have been very wet and cold so the flowers remained closed, but with the sunshine forecasted for today, I had high hopes!

And sure enough, this is what greeted me this morning as soon as the sun hit the gardens! 

Besides the crocuses, glory-of-the-snow, tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, and muscari, quite a few perennials are already up and growing! This is the wormwood...

And lovage...

Both of these are in the 'seed garden', which is almost entirely bare of snow now (the picture below was taken on Monday). I'm hoping to get some work done in it this afternoon...it will feel so good to play in the dirt again!  

We already have bare ground in many places, but there are still plenty of areas where the snow is quite deep yet. I still need snowshoes to walk in the field, most of the woods, and even parts of the yard. There is a river forming in the field behind our place...

...and into the woods. We had about an inch of rain on Monday so it was really flowing.

A large area in the woods is completely under water right now. This whole section is covered in Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis) in summer.

And a closer look reveals that it's already sprouting!!

I went to the woods again this morning to do some more thorough exploring and see if I could find any super early flowers, especially Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) which I am determined to see in bloom this spring, but most of the woods are still under a couple feet of snow.

So, after wading around the swamps most of the morning, I came back very wet and muddy but still happy, and set out to find my snowshoes, which I had foolishly left behind! 😁

And now I need to get back outside. It's such a beautiful day it seems almost a sin to be in the house sitting at a computer, especially since the next few days will be very wet again, but I just couldn't wait to share the good news with you all! 😊