Hello there.

I have decided that rather than spend the afternoon cleaning the basement, I will start a new project. The seed for this project germinated as I stooped down to take a picture of some crocuses as my dog and I were coming home from our walk.  

Here is my plan: I am going to use this not-used-enough blog to document all the flowers as they appear in our lawn and garden this year. If you follow along, I think that you will be amazed at how many flowers show up to at least nod hello, and I am starting today… instead of cleaning the basement.  Actually, I am starting two weeks ago. Two weeks and ten years ago, to be precise.

 I am going to have to cheat right off the bat, because the first flowers to appear were the snowdrops about two weeks ago, right before a week of horrible weather. I took a picture of those brave little souls, but I can’t find the darn thing on my phone or laptop. Where the heck did it go? So here is a picture that I took in 2014 of the first brave flowers of the season:

Snowdrops grow from tiny bulbs, and they multiply each year, so we have drifts of them here and there at the lower slope of our yard, sometimes amidst snow, sometimes bending in the wind. Sometimes possibly crying?  Seeing the first snowdrops always makes my day.

Fast forward to the present. The snowdrops have withered and wilted.

Now the lovely lavender crocuses with their saffron stamens are blooming where I live in the countryside of northeastern Pennsylvania, and if you look closely at the photo, you can see that the edges are a bit weather-beaten. I can relate. But look how gorgeous these little gems are that bloom faithfully each year. They always make me happy.

I did not know the name of this last flower until I happened upon an article about it somewhere. It is a Hellebore, and it takes shelter against our basement wall. It is also called a Lenten Rose because it is likely to bloom around Lent, but sometimes it’s called a Christmas Rose because it also might bloom near Christmas, just not around this cold neck of the woods. These flowers are also extremely toxic, and I just held one up in order to get a better picture, and I’m thinking maybe I should go wash my hands before I die of Hellebore poisoning. Wouldn’t that be a tragic start/ending to my flower-picture project?

Ok, hands washed and still breathing fine, so you can stop worrying about me, if you were.

Anyway, it’s amazing what you can find on the Internet. Here is what the site tesselaar.net.au has to say about Hellebores: “There is a tale of Dionysus, who used his powers to turn the daughters of Argos mad. They roamed naked and hysterical, until Melampus of Plyos made a brew of Hellebore to save them from madness.”

How could you not love Hellebores?

That’s all for today. Well, maybe not.

I’m sitting here in the sunroom next to my Poinsettia that a dear friend gave me for Christmas and my Anthurium that I purchased at Longwood Gardens a couple of years ago.  I think that the Poinsettia and Anthurium are jealous. They want their pictures taken. Ok, they are blooming.  I’m throwing in a bonus here.

There are some interesting alternative names for the Anthurium, and I’ll leave it at that.

In a world that is a bit of a crappy mess sometimes, flowers never fail to make my day better. Flower power! Maybe that’s another reason to do this project: I hope that these pictures of humble flowers will also brighten your corner of the world.

Thank you for reading this!