Catching up

First, this morning, an invitation for any of you close enough to stop into the gardens. Our daffodils are at peak bloom so we're going to open the gardens tomorrow afternoon, April 11th, from noon to 5 for anyone who wants to walk among the daffodils and maybe take some home for your table. Can't promise that I'm all cleaned up and ready for the season, but the daffodils are definitely worth the 45 minutes or an hour it takes to walk through the gardens. Hope to see you all on Saturday afternoon.
This was sold to me as Ranunculus 'Brazen Hussy' but it has mottled foliage and not the solid black so I'm not sure if it is the same thing, a variation or a different plant. Same pretty flowers, though.
The next one is a double flowered Ranunculus which has naturalized out as Glasshouse Works. No such luck here, yet, but it has formed a nice large clump.

This is Ranunculus 'Brazen Hussy' in bloom. I wish they stayed around all summer, but even though the flowers bloom over a fairly long time, the whole thing will go dormant once the hear gets here. They self seed and come try from see, so they seem to be popping up everywhere this time of year and also seem to flower the first year.

This is another of our double Hellebores. Can't get enough of these flowers this time of year.

Last is one of our oddities. This is the bloom from Petasites hybridus. It blooms much later than all of the others in the garden, not blooming until the leaves are emerging - very un-petasites-like as the others bloom long before the leaves appear. This bloom starts out looking somewhat like a red, warty, morel and then the stem gets longer and the top elongates and then the blooms open. It makes fluffy seeds that fly around like milkweed. It seems to hybridize freely with the other hellebores and we have a number of seedlings in the vicinity that are like none of the others in the yard.

It's about to rain so I'm off to take pictures before I need my canoe to get around the yard.

Jane