Mid-Atlantic Gardening: FIRST FLOWERS OF SPRING!!! Post your pics!! April Edition :), 1 by greenthumb99

greenthumb99 wrote:
Yesterday was such a nice change of weather. Pat and I spent much of the day excavating beds and "lawn" that still had their winter blanket of leaves. Such fun to see all the young plants than had been hidden away. Some of what we found were:

Dutchman's Breeches, with flower stems already apparent. A couple more days and they should be at their glory.

Bloodroot, where the flowers precede the leaves by a few days. In this photo the unopened flowers can be seen wrapped by the emerging leaves. The flowers do not open except when the temperature is warm enough that their pollinators are out and about, somewhere in the mid 50's. During the afternoon the flowers were open, but when I went back later again with the camera, the temperature had fallen and the flowers had closed back up.

Hepatica, delightful early spring flowers but surrounded by ragged foliage from last year. The new leaves are so attractive that it is a shame they are not present to accent the flowers.

Virginia Wild Ginger, Hexastylis virginica, with its purple little flowers hidden beneath last seasons declining foliage. The flowers are at ground level so that they can be pollinated by ants.

Spring Beauty poking up through the leaves.