Spring Emergence 2025
It’s so wonderful to see the gardens transform this time of year.
Spring officially begins in less than a week and here at my farm, flowers are now emerging after the long, dreary winter. I have blooming croci, snowdrops, eranthis, and hellebores. And the leaves of so many daffodils are pushing through the soil. Soon the grounds will be covered in spring color. Here’s a glimpse of what is flowering right now.
Enjoy these photos.
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- And just like that there are flowers popping up everywhere. Crocus is an early season flower that pops up usually in shades of purple, yellow, and white. There are about 90 different species of crocus that originate from Southern Europe, Central Asia, China, the Middle East, and Africa.
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- Croci can be found in alpine meadows, rocky mountainsides, scrublands, and woodlands. I have groups of crocus blooms all around my farm.
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- Beneath my allée of pin oaks and in an area near my blueberry bushes, I grow white crocus. They only reach about four inches tall, but they naturalize easily, meaning they spread and come back.
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- And here are some pink crocus. Crocus blossoms attract winter-weary bees that are drawn to the rich, golden pollen inside each flower.
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- Eranthis, or winter aconite, is a genus of eight species of flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae – the Buttercup family. Winter aconite produces such cheerful flowers that appear in late winter or earliest spring. They are deer resistant and multiply more and more every year.
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- The yellow flowers are small, cup-shaped, and are typically yellow or white, with five to nine petal-like sepals.
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- One of my favorite spring blooms is the snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis. These beautiful white flowers are blooming all around my houses. Snowdrops produce one very small pendulous bell-shaped white flower which hangs off its stalk like a “drop” before opening.
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- The witch-hazel continues to bloom nicely. It grows as small trees or shrubs with clusters of rich orange-red to yellow flowers. They’re very hardy and are not prone to a lot of diseases. Most species bloom from January to March and display beautiful spidery flowers that let off a slightly spicy fragrance.
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- Witch-hazel flowers consist of four, strap-like petals that are able to curl inward to protect the inner structures from freezing during the winter.
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- New growth is also emerging in the woodland. Symplocarpus foetidus, commonly known as skunk cabbage or swamp cabbage is a low growing plant that grows in wetlands and moist hill slopes of eastern North America. The flowers appear before the leaves and show a mottled maroon hoodlike leaf called a spathe, which surrounds a knob-like structure called a spadix.
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- Here is a lighter green-yellow variety.
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- One can see the spadix inside. The spadix is actually a fleshy spike of many petal-less flowers. As the flowers mature, the spathe opens more to allow pollinators to enter.
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- This is a red sedum. Sedum, a large genus of flowering plants, are also known as stonecrops and are members of the succulent family. Sedum does really well growing between the crevices in stone walls. We planted this sedum several years ago. Most sedum has a trailing nature – I love how it grows on the side of this wall outside my Winter House.
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- Looking closely, many of the trees are showing off their spring buds. These are on the branches of a Stewartia tree.
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- And along the daffodil border, in the woodland and in various areas around the farm there are patches of daffodil foliage. I have thousands of daffodils planted in large groupings, providing a stunning swath of color when in bloom.
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- Here, one can see how the daffodils pushed through the soil.
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- These are the leaves and berries of Rohdea japonica, also known as Japanese Sacred lily, or Nippon lily – a tropical-looking evergreen herbaceous perennial that has an upright, clumping, and vase-like form. Its leaves are thick, rubbery, and measure from about a foot long and two to three inches wide.
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- Another favorite – the hellebores. Hellebores are members of the Eurasian genus Helleborus – about 20 species of evergreen perennial flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae. They blossom during late winter and early spring for up to three months.
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- Many of them will soon be open. Hellebores come in different colors and have rose-like blossoms. It is common to plant them on slopes or in raised beds in order to see their flowers, which tend to nod.
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- Much of the farm still looks like winter, but not for long. Soon the trees will be filled with glorious leaves, and all the gardens will be bursting with color – wait and see!
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