Early Spring in Vermont.

5-9-19 VERMONT: I came up yesterday to a sunny day in the sixties, and today was the same except it started in the thirties. I’m here to open the gardens and set-up the yard for the warm season. The snow is gone, but only by a few days. On the game cams, there was still a drop of snow on May 2. The lawn guys were here and cleaned up a thousand sticks that were scattered around the yard. Scott cleaned up the huge pine branch that had come down.

The new grass in the pasture is a little thin. I’ll fertilize it. The pond is pretty clear, I did the treatments that keep algae under control. I saw newts, fish, turtles, crayfish and, of course, frogs.

I started by cleaning the beds of fallen branches and leaves and hauled away two cartloads of debris. I moved the picnic table onto the deck. I removed deadfall—mostly pine branches from the honey suckle bushes, pruned damaged shrubs, pruned hydrangeas and clematis, and that was a full day.

In bloom: daffodil, primrose, star magnolia, forsythia, hellebore, hepatica, blood root, wild ginger, purple lamium, violets, trillium, pachysandra.


Another spring surprise-Hepatica, so named because the leaves were thought to resemble a liver. Said leaves last all season.

Trillium, also called Wake Robin, available in white as well. Three petals, three sepals, three leaves all symmetrically arranged at 120° angles.

Primrose. The Japanese primrose on the stalks open later.

Hellebore turns the flowers toward the ground making a good picture harder to get. Is it done this way to attract some special pollinator?

Wild ginger. This little brown flower is right on the dirt. Who pollinates this?

Double blood root flowers last longer than the native plant, below.

The blood root flower is evanescent, lasting for only a few days.

Violets, also out in white.