After the warm spell in February, it returned to more seasonal weather and even snowed a bit. The snow didn’t last long, and then we were in a long stretch of the awkward time period when it was still cold but not quite winter and not yet spring. I was pretty jealous of all of my Instagram friends’ posts of early-spring blooms, when everything was still completely brown in my yard.

Then one night it rained, and suddenly there was a small patch of pearly everlasting and what I assume to be Canada goldenrods.

(In the two weeks since, these have multiplied.)

I traveled to the backyard and when brushing away the leaf layer, I found spring beauty leaves that were growing unnoticed.

And lots and lots of violets, which are taking over the woodland garden — proving once again that just because a flower is native, it doesn’t mean that it’s desired everywhere.

Since I’m still waiting on blooms in my own garden, I headed to Eloise Butler’s garden on April 8 to see some. Things seemed to be a week behind where they were last year. First, hepatica:

then snow trillium…

…and skunk cabbage.

When I got home, when I was still in the car in the driveway, I saw my first butterfly of the season, a red admiral. (But I scared it off before I could get close enough for a photo.) Later that evening, in the woodland garden, I saw one ant, three worms, and unfortunately, two mosquitoes. A full, 70-degree day.

Just three days later, it snowed, showing how fickle spring can be. Of course, it all melted within hours.

The plants that were emerging in February seem to be okay now, if not quite normal. They’re growing around last year’s stems, which are still in place. I won’t remove them until it gets a little warmer, just in case insects are still hibernating.

Here’s sedum; I think the smaller, purply leaves are the February ones that have been stunted, while the bigger ones are new. And the middle of this plant seems to be digging itself up.

The pink turtlehead is fine…

and the white one is finally growing after taking awhile to get started, almost as if it were nervous to start growing in case the temperatures plummeted again.

And the cup plant looks really good.

One night I saw a bat fluttering around in the twilight, swooping back-and-forth and up-and-down in front of my window for about 10 minutes until it got too dark for me to see it anymore. Birds have showed up, too, such as goldfinches and robins.

With all the rain this week and warm temperatures forecast for the weekend, we’re about to see an explosion of plant growth. Looks like hepatica might be the first one to bloom — and I’m thrilled to finally see so many of these buds, since in past years there were only one or two. (Spring beauty is getting close to opening, too.)

I’ve wanted to create a list of all the plants in my garden for several years, and the time is now. I’m recording them as they appear this season.

These short-lived flowers, which are the first to bloom each year, are the reason I love spring best. They’re such a fun sight after a long winter.

Rue anemone’s purple swirled leaves just after emergence:

Two weeks later, the leaves are green and there are more flowers than previous years:

Only one or two hepatica flowers opened – they’ve never bloomed well in our garden:

Its leaves always look nice after the flowers are done, though:

Tiny, delicate spring beauty:

Merry little bellworts:

Wild ginger with its strange little flowers hidden under its big leaves:

These violets are native, but I know how much they spread, so I attempted to contain them when I moved some to the front yard by planting them in a pot:

That apparently didn’t work, since there is a new plant now growing just inches away:

Trillium sessile:

I’m so antsy for these showy trilliums to bloom:

And soon, there will be jack-in-the-pulpit and wild geranium.

It feels like spring has been here for so long, but really, it’s just that the snow has been gone for so long. Plants started popping out of the ground several weeks ago, but they didn’t do much until the last week because we’ve had several freezes and even a couple of snow flurries as recently as two weeks ago.

In the meantime, I’ve already been to Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden in Minneapolis three times! I had to get a glimpse of some flowers – like my favorite, bloodroot, which for some reason does not grow in our yard (despite my attempts every year).

Finally, after some warm temperatures, there are a couple of blossoms in our woodland garden, too. (Much more on those another day.) Can we say that spring is truly here? I really think so – though I’m trying to be realistic and remember that it snowed the first week of May, four years ago.

I’ve been so antsy to get out into the garden, but I’ve been holding off so I don’t trample the ground where bees are hibernating. I’ve been mostly keeping to the edges of the garden and peeping as far as I can see – but I just can’t resist taking a closer look any longer. Bees are out now, anyway.

Purple coneflower:

Stiff goldenrod:

Cup plant:

Spiderwort:

Bee balm:

Turtlehead:

I think yellow coneflower, yarrow, and purple giant hyssop will compete this year for the plant that has spread the most:

Phlox – which came out of the ground very purple, a phenomenon that an Instagram friend says is due to a pigment that protects plants from UV rays. It has already begun to turn green:

Several unknowns, including this one in the jack-in-the-pulpit spot that I fear is invasive creeping bellflower:

Is this the year our cardinal flower finally succeeds?

We seem to have our first failure of the year, pasqueflower, which I have not spotted where it should be. But soon, we’ll have more flowers than we can keep track of. Spring is the most wonderful time of the year. (No need to remind me of that statement in six months, when I will claim – again – that autumn is the most beautiful time of the year.)

Is it time to remove the dead flower stalks and debris from last year, like on this sedum? Or is it still too early for hibernating insects that may be sleeping inside?