The first crocuses, snowdrops and Christmas rose flowers appeared on Feb. 8 this year.
More flowers arrived daily, shrugging off February snowstorms and subzero temperatures until, by the end of March, these were joined by riots of purple and blue snow iris; both the blue and white forms of scilla; striped squill; the earliest grape hyacinths, Muscari latifolium and M. bortryoides; the aptly named glory-of-the-snow; and Grecian windflower, in pink, blue and white varieties.
The bright yellow crocus tulips jumped into action only a few days after a patch of snow melted off their beds, explaining why all of these flowers are sometimes referred to as “snowmelt flowers.” Orange-red multi-flowering tulip Toronto, at only 6 inches tall, packed a lot of power into a small package. Nearby, a clump of Kaufmanniana tulip Shakespeare bloomed, their carmine intensity shocking against brown mulch. The pale, yellow-and-white stars of Tulipa turkestanica closed up tight at night and on overcast days, protecting them against inclement weather.
A few daffodils have joined the fray. Only a handful of the large trumpet types persist in my hot, dry south-facing backyard. They’ll pop up later in moisture-retaining areas at the front of my house, where heirloom King Alfred types have naturalized into large clumps. For now, I’m content with more adaptable Tête-…-Tête, a miniature cylacamineus daffodil with two to three flowers per stem.
Lenten roses have sent up a smattering of white and purple flowers, with their main show to come a few weeks hence. An English primrose, retired to a slightly shady, moist spot after having brightened up my kitchen in a pot for several weeks last winter, is indulging in an encore performance. The soft yellow fragrant flowers of cowslip primrose are always welcome the first week of spring.
Mauve and lavender-red violets cover the ground under the Austrian pines like fallen petals. The true hyacinths, not completely open yet, are budded and showing color. And the first lavender-red pasque flowers decorate my rock gardens.
It might be easy at this point to overlook a selection of tiny rock-garden treasures. The better-known Corydalis solida is preceded by a couple of weeks by C. angustifolia and C. malkensis, all of them dainty little things with white flowers and fernlike foliage that vanishes in a month’s time. Tiny flowers of hardy Cyclamen coum are less than one-inch across but announce themselves in bold magenta pinwheels against pine-needle mulch. Green prickly rosettes of Spanish draba sport cheerful yellow flowers.
And the saxifrages abound. Saxifraga oppositifolia starts out rich rose, fades to barely pink. Stiff rosettes of other saxifrages bloom variously in white, soft yellow and soft pink. All of these alpine flowers appreciate a site with morning sun and afternoon shade that doesn’t actually bake in summer.
All this frivolity occurs before the official garden season has even begun. The flowers of late winter and early spring, once planted, pretty much take care of themselves; this is a tough and weather-resilient group.
Hail, extreme heat, drought, untimely frosts, whatever lies ahead, nothing can diminish the exuberance of a Colorado garden in early spring.
Marcia Tatroe’s garden in Centennial is a Humane Society Urban Wildlife habitat, Audubon Habitat hero wildscape and a Xerces pollinator wildlife habitat where wildlife is encouraged and tolerated, come what may.
