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原來這世上能跟你共同領略一個笑話的人竟如此難得........................................

Did you do that!? Adorable!

oh my! the fairies surely have a grand time there! it looks quite magical.

What wonderful faeries! (But be careful - don't get in it!)

LOVE.

Thanks! For most of the year, it's just slightly elevated lawn (circle made by a pile of autumn leaves swept onto the lawn and left there all winter), but I've been burying bulbs there for a few years now. The tulips in there are the naturalizing kind that proliferate.

How lovely!

Wonder what sorts of mischief the fairies get up to here? An inspiring image, thank you.

That's really creative!!!!

Wow, you made the flowers DEAD ON. What a gorgeous color!

Currants have way, way, WAY too many seeds in them.

just lovely!!

Beautiful!

I made apple butter once. Once.

Tanita, Mamaroots and LoneStarMa: Thanks! The extent of my jam/fruit-butter making involves taking skins off (apples and pears), cooking until the fruit is soft, and then puree-ing with the immersion blender.

These just keep getting more and more beautiful. I love the expression on her face and the tilt of her head. As for jam, we've made raspberry jam every fall for years now--it's just freezer jam, but I love it because it keeps the bright color of the berries and tastes so fresh. Super-easy to make, too (I use Pomona pectin). You should try it!

Oh, the Red Currant doll is so pretty!

I may take you up on that jam-trading deal when jam-making season comes round again.

This reminds me that the other day Lucas and I had a conversation re: preserving fruits.

Lucas: I know it's a lot of work to make jam and freeze fruit, but it is totally worth it.
Me: You didn't actually make any jam or freeze any fruit.
Lucas: I know, but it was still worth it.

Oh she is so pretty! I love your detail. Her staff with the blossoms on the end!!!!

Adrienne: Oh good! I was looking at you when I wrote what I did. I got a kick out of your exchange with Lucas.

Jama: Thanks! I'm glad you like her.

Anamaria: You tempt me... I love raspberry jam. In fact, I don't think I've met a jam I didn't like. I bought my father some dandelion jam years ago but I never actually tasted it.

Oh, Farida! She is beautiful...her colors lovely. The flowers are spot on!

ooo these are really beautiful! Are you going to make current jam/jelly? Or are they just for the birds?

My garden is waking up too and I am trying to get out there and do a little every day. I love this time of year!

Oh, those are pretty! I would call them chandelier bushes, though. They look like earrings to me instead of icicles!

Wow, lovely. Last weekend here in Rochester was the first dry/warm weekend of the year. Rakes could be heard scraping and scratching up and down my street as flowerbeds and veggiebeds *finally* get the attention they so obviously deserve

lol... my lemon verbena survives to be a leggy tree taller than me (because I forget to prune it)... but every time I try a currant bush it dies in the summer! Yours are beautiful :D

It's lovely to see all the green things starting to grow back, and I always love photos of your gardens. Everything always looks so nice and orderly, quite the opposite of my yard.

Adrienne: The secret to an orderly--looking garden is to weed before I take photos. As I look out at the beds today, I have to laugh, because they certainly did not look that way a few days ago.

Schelle: How lovely to have a lemon verbena that thrives! We'll see how the red currant does.

Lori: It's the same story here. I keep thinking that I really should get out to garden in the winter, but when it's cold and rainy, I think of the poor gardeners who have to do it for a living, and stay tucked away inside.

Tanita: Me too! I think that's a better name.

Andromeda: If the currant bush actually puts forth berries this year, I'll try to get to them to make compote before hte birds eat them. Honeybees like red currant bushes, and they're the ones I'm most hoping to attract.

Farida, What is this "weeding" thing of which you speak? ;)

Adrienne: I highly recommend the hori-hori knife for weeding. Dandelions come up like butter! Well, not the one that had a root over three feet long (this is not an exaggeration-- I finally had to stop because I was ripping up the whole lawn trying to find the end of that root). Mostly, though the hori-hori knife has served me well.

I have never seen these before! They are gorgeous.

Shall I show you my lawn in which dandelions are encouraged to thrive? I have this thing against monocultures lol... I guess it helps to have acres to play in, with that attitude! But dandelions are still one of my favourite flowers.

Lovely!

The children make us keep the dandelions.

Ooh, you'll have to take a picture later in the season so we can see how/why it got its name.

Tanita: I will, definitely. Last year, I bought the bush with the blossoms on, so I didn't get to see them emerge. It looks as if the currant bush is happy where it is in the garden. Without realizing it, I got the kind of bush where the berries are technically edible, but not particularly delicious. I discovered I really like the scent of currant leaves, though. This bush is all about the blossoms that hang down like icicles in spring.

Lovely!

Oh Farida this is gorgeous!! Thank you so much for honoring me in this way. Your photographs are just lovely. I can't wait to see the blossoms later in spring. This color of new leaves is really my favorite color in the universe though. I never get tired of the thrill of brand new baby leaves. Spring is coming!

Lovely.

A link, despite our geographic and biospheric differences! Today,in the high desert, I saw three golden crocuses blooming. (The kindergartners had planted them last fall.) Thanks for the link again to Lucia's song. It cheered me.

Here in the brrr-land, we have white/purple crocus hybrids, which begin to bloom in, of all things, December. They are a reminder that all things will be made new in Spring... I was shocked to find the first, thinking the flowers confused, but nope! Looking forward to the true crocuses soon.

Your crocus photo came from BBC South Yorkshire! Don't you think that that is an absolutely wonderful thing about the Internet - the ability to travel in cyberspace and explore the world. I have often read online American papers....In our garden, the snowdrops I planted last August when I was ill with e-coli were just coming through when the snow dropped on us!

YP: When I found that photo, I knew I had to post it in your honor! I'm glad your snowdrops are coming through. Ours are peeping up as well. I remember your e-coli bout-- gah.

Tanita: Crocuses in December? I understand about flowers needing to get ahead so they don't have to compete for pollination, but December is so... wintery.

There is a section of our yard where I'd grown bulbs last year, but then dug them all up to allow the yard to take over the spot again. I'm tickled that there are still some bulbs coming up this year-- grape hyacinths, I suspect, but perhaps some of the regular hyacinths as well.

Melangell: I didn't know there were crocuses in the high desert! We'll have to add those to the Southwest seasonal nature table offerings. (For everyone else: mom and I have been talking about making nature table figures that specifically represent foliage in New Mexico.)

LSM: As always, thank you for checking in.

So sweet. Spring. So many gifts it gives after such a dryspell.

Mmmmm.

Jealous! Jealous! JEALOUS!!!!!!

Oh! The gorgeousness!!

Spring has sprung late
In Washington State...
(The first two lines of a poem but I am too lazy to write the rest of it - why don't you do it?)

Lovely gardens.

YP:... Um, "O to be in England, now that April's there?" Nope, already taken!

LSM: I wish you could see what's already going on around here. It's a lovely part of the country.

What a lovely spring post! Thank you for cheering me up on the dreary afternoon of cold rain.

April in England can be quite a mixed, slushy, muddy bag. You can have days of glorious sunshine and mild temperatures wherein you can enjoy the spectacular spring blooms, or equally, you can spend the whole month indoors while watching your garden float away. At the moment, we've had exceptional weather this winter; lots of sunshine. The cherry trees are already in full bloom.

The bluebells here are something else. I'm looking forward to this spring when I can get pictures of the Prawn toddling around in them. :) What we call bluebells in the States are quite prolific over here too and are known as "grape hyacinths".

Blogapotamus: Are these the grape hyacinths of which you speak:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grape_hyacinth

?
If so, I just love 'em. Last year, I bought them mixed in with wee jonquils at the Tulip festival, and hope they bloom again this year.