Please forgive me if I sometimes sound like working the garden is constant drudgery. I find it very much the opposite, though there are afternoons when I would prefer to be lounging on the couch with a cold beverage watching this basketball tournament or that.

Saturday morning began cool and cloudy, and I prepared to postpone my clean up plans to a warmer, less dreary day. But, the pump from the front pond required a minor bit of repair, and a few days earlier I left the task half finished. A screwdriver and a few minutes were all that were required, and the pump was once again purring along.

Along the path to the front door I noticed that another crocus (above) was blooming, as the ones that were in flower last week have now disappeared completely. Unfortunately, I haven’t a clue of the varieties that have been planted, so that I cannot recommend one over another. Sometimes I keep the packaging tags after I plant, and other times not, but I always assume that the tags have been trashed, so I don’t check, and of course in this case it is pointless to keep the tags in the first place.

The lack of sun was nearly ideal for photographs, and once I have fetched my camera there will be a lengthy delay until work is begun again. The snowdrops have begun to decline a bit, but mahonias, edgeworthia, and pieris are moving steadily towards their peak bloom in a few weeks. All but a few of the hellebores (above and below) are blooming, and the few that are slow to appear will peak with a few warm days.

Of course I cannot identify one hellebore from the other, and the matter is complicated since a number of them are seedlings that have popped up and been transplanted around the shady garden so that I can’t identify which are the parent plants and which are offspring.

The ground is quite muddy from the recent rains, and now my knees and elbows are soiled from crawling about for photos of the hellebores. One hand cradles the camera, the other a small forked twig that holds the flower upright, all the while trying not to tumble over into the slop.

And now the sun has appeared through the clouds. I will take a break for a bite to eat as the temperatures rise, and this afternoon will be productive after all.