Earliest blooms

The sun finally came out again today and the temps are back near 60 for a high today. So I thought I'd go out into the garden in search of some blooms. My first stop was at a bench out in the woods, which can be seen from the living room windows.

I like this bench because it is in the shade and it's very quiet and peaceful out in the woods. I have a winter daphne planted on either side of it and they are just now starting to bloom.

These are some of the most wonderfully fragrant shrubs you can own, and it's a real treat to have something in bloom at this time of year. They are very delicate rooted so they are very sensitive to any disturbance of their roots. When I planted them, I took my mattock and scared the soil where I was to plant them. Then I mixed up one large bag of ground pine bark, with one bag of top soil and one bag of composted cow manure. I added about a third a cup of ground phosphate (to help form blooms) and a cup of plant tone fertilizer made by Espoma (www.espoma.com). Then I removed the plant carefully from it's pot and placed it on top of the scared ground. Then I mounded the soil mixture around the plants and added about 4" of mulch and watered them in. Mine are on an automatic drip irrigation line that provides 2 gal of water once a week. This is the 4th year since I planted them and they have done surprisingly well, having bloomed each year. I am very proud of these shrubs because winter daphne are such finicky plants.
 Not far away, around the corner but in the same garden, the hellebores have started sending up their bloom buds and it won't be long before they burst open.

I usually go out this time of year and cut back the old foliage on the hellebores to showcase the blooms and because the new foliage will come out in spring.

 I also noticed that the Osmanthus fragrans around the fire pit are still blooming.

We have seven of these shrubs surrounding the patio by the fire pit and a long line of them along the southern edge of our property as a hedge between us and the neighbors. They start to bloom around September and last as long as there is no hard freezes. They have a wonderful citrus like smell when the nights are just starting to get cool and it gets time to start enjoying the fire pit around dusk.
 The last thing I noticed a bloom on is the Star Magnolia.

This large shrub/small tree usually blooms in late February to early March. Many years the blooms get damaged by a late frost. It has a light fragrance and should be planted near a path or a window you can open on a sunny day and enjoy the fragrance on a late winter day.