Happy first day of Spring for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere!
Are you ready to step into Spring?

In anticipation of gardening season and spring, I’m reaching
into the archives to pick some garden blooms and share some flower therapy!
Click on the highlighted links if you’d like more details.
Flower Market Buckets and Blooms Around the Potting Shed

Spring snowballs are a good thing if you’re talking flowers!
If you have room in your landscape for a viburnum shrub I highly recommended planting one!

The flowers start out green and turn a snowy white and make beautiful cut flowers.

Snowball Viburnum tolerates a range of soils, but performs best in moist, well-drained, acidic soil.
Plant in full sun to partial shade in USDA zones 6-9.
You can read more: Fast Growing and Low Maintenance White Spring Blooms Your Garden Needs
Spring Snowballs and Bird Chirping Table

Tabletop Gardening and Garden Bouquets in the Potting Shed
Ball jar bouquets of garden flowers and
vintage transferware for tabletop gardening in the Potting Shed.


Garden for Wildlife Month: Create a Wildlife Habitat in Your Backyard
Certify your garden as a Wildlife Habitat to attract birds, butterflies, and other neighborhood wildlife.
It’s fun, makes a positive difference and easier than you might think!

Big Colorful Blooms and Favorite Perennial for Easy Summer Gardening
Daylilies make for easy summer gardening, thanks to their reliability, hardiness and big, colorful blooms! They bloom repeatedly for years with minimal attention, tolerate a wide variety of soil conditions and stand up to the summer heat, humidity and are even drought-tolerant!

Limelight Hydrangeas bloom around mid July in our zone 8a garden,
when everything else is in the garden is tired and spent.

Plant a Limelight Hydrangea. . .or Five
I highly recommend planting this easy-to-grow, low maintenance shrub in your garden
this spring. It will provide you with both beautiful fresh-cut and dried flowers too.

Bodacious Blooms and a Bad Week to be a Peony
Find a growing guide and tips for the long-lived and beloved perennial, the Peony. Post includes Peony floral and table inspiration.

‘Sarah Bernhardt’ Peony is a favorite variety with big,
pink fragrant double blooms that resemble old-fashioned roses.

Pretty in Pink Peonies and Ball Jar Bouquets
Peony blooms are so fleeting, you have to enjoy the beauty and sweet fragrance while you can!


May to June is when our Endless Summer Hydrangeas, Buddleia (butterfly bush),
clematis and roses are flush with blooms in our zone 7b garden.

Spring Flowers Around the Potting Shed

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail is the most common butterfly we see fluttering around the garden.

This is a female swallowtail, denoted by the large area of blue area on the hind wings,
alight on a Soda Pop Butterfly Bush, a dwarf variety Buddleia.

Clematis ‘Bernadine’ is a rebloomer variety with lavender-blue petals and magenta stamens.
It’s happy with 4 – 6 hours of sun and hardy in zones 4 – 9 and is bee and butterfly friendly!

Earth Angel Rose is a fragrant old-fashioned rose and with blooms varying in color from white to soft pink.

It’s hardy in zones 5 – 9 and takes several bloom cycles to produce peony-shaped flowers.

If you want a plant that attracts pollinators, self-sows and that tolerates the heat,
plant Verbena Lollipop! It grows in zones 6 – 10 and prefers full sun in well-drained soil.

We had several new clumps of Lollipop that volunteered last spring,
seeded from the previous year’s plants.

I’m a firm *bee*liever in not being too hasty when it comes to pulling your ‘weeds’
in case you can identify them after a little growth as a flower. . .
or that’s my excuse anyway. ‘-) 🌱🌸

It was almost 80 degrees here yesterday in the Southern Piedmont of North Carolina!
Our daffodils and spring bulbs are almost bloomed out, the pear trees and red buds
have been blooming for a couple of weeks, and the peonies are starting to emerge!

I always worry when it’s so warm this early that the spring blooming shrubs
will be frost nipped. Our frost date is April 15th, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed
that the viburnum, spirea, clematis and hydrangeas don’t bud too early and get zapped.

A couple of years ago, I used a ladder and an old sheet to protect the buds
on our Clematis ‘Diamantina’ from the freezing temps!



We’re currently in the midst of the dreaded ‘pollening’ in our
calendar of North Carolina’s 12 Seasons. . . *ACHOO* !

I’m anxiously awaiting our hummingbirds’ return . . .

We saw our first Ruby-throated Hummingbird April 4th last year.
I read on Facebook that Ruby-throated Hummingbirds were spotting in upstate South Carolina,
so I’m going to put out a couple of feeders next week for an early migrators!

Winged Beauties and Fearless Flyers

“Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine for the soul.”
– Luther Burbank

Gardening is cheaper than therapy and you get flowers!

“No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.”
– Hal Borland

Are you enjoying an early spring or still covered in snow?
🐝🌷🌼🦋🏡

Thank you for your visit!
Sharing with: Metamorphosis Monday
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THANKS!!! I needed that beautiful reminder that Spring is on the way.
Waiting here in Indiana!!!!
I wish I could have a Hummingbird but I live in a condo in Florida. No yard. Sad but one day soon I pray I will.
Hi Christie, If you have a patio or balcony to hang a feeder, a hummingbird will find it!
Mary, I love the tours of your garden. You always describe your plants and how to care for them. It’s a huge help to someone that does not have a green thumb! But it’s never too late to learn, I hope!!
The photos are just beautiful!
It’s feeling pretty warm in north Georgia Things are starting to turn green and my camellia bush is blooming.
Happy Spring!
Thanks for the beautiful pictures and thoughts! I am so ready for warmer spring weather…here in central Virginia we are still have a few nights below freezing.
This is the saying in my kitchen right now: No matter how long the Winter Spring is sure to follow!
Peace
Happy Spring!
I enjoyed seeing all your lovely flowers! We are ready to see all the colors that Spring will bring!
Good morning, Mary. I’m late reading this, but hopefully your tender plants survived those cold nights. Ours were a few degrees lower, and so windy last week! I actually took my chances and left my peonies uncovered. Last year I bought a weather station, and it consistently measures temps at my home around 5° warmer than what our airport measures. But I love the ladder and sheet idea for taller plants!
These posts are so full of so much beauty you’ve cultivated and created through the years, I just love seeing them all together. Down the rabbit hole I go!
Mary, I love seeing all of your beautiful spring blooms. Your garden is stunning!!
Pollen has appeared here and I am sneezing. It is very windy today with a high of 48 degrees. Unfortunately the windy conditions will cease tonight and we have a low of 30. We had a light frost earlier this week. Happy Spring and Happy Gardening 🩷🌼🌸🌺
Your spring shrubs and flowers are gorgeous! Garden therapy is always good! I hope to get some blooms on my peonies this year. Our daffodils and forsythia bushes are blooming. Enjoy your day. Clara❤️
Using a stepladder to make a tent to protect a shrub is a great idea!
After this harsh winter, I definitely needed flower therapy. Thank you for sharing so much beauty
This garden girl is taking in all this advice, Mary. I’d so love to grow lime light hydrangea, but have not had success. Oak Leaf hydrangeas do fine here. I’m going to give lime lights another chance. I think it’s just too hot and dry here. I also want to try a climbing rose this year, but not sure where to plant one. My trellises finally are blooming this spring with Cross Vine, so now I’ll leave well enough alone. I’m making note of the step ladder tent. Great idea!
Your gardens are envious! Thank you for sharing such detail. Happy 1st Day of Spring!
I so appreciate your posts, but I had to laugh…we had 4 inches of snow yesterday and every night is freezing…so whgile the bulbs are up an inch…they won’t bloom for another 4 weeks. Viburnum mid june or later…Hugs, Sandi in Chicagoland
Beautiful! Thanks for the flower therapy! 🌷🌸💐
Oh Mary, that was sure a feast for my eyes before bedtime. When your yard is in bloom it must be like heaven everyday when you walk outside. You have the most gorgeous yard ever crested by your loving hands, and I know your hubby helps so much, too. Thank you for the spring preview of what’s to come. Happy Springtime. 💐
P. S. I like your 12 Seasons Chart! I wonder what ours is? I know hot, hotter, and hottest would be on there.
All so heavenly!