Happily, a hard freeze forecast for the weekend turned into a light freeze, so flowers of magnolias (below) and cherries suffered no damage at all. With warmer temperatures on the way, it’s apparent that flowers will make it through with only minor damage to the earliest blooms, an unusual situation and mostly due to flowering being delayed a few weeks by cold through much of March.

While there is a certain satisfaction in pristine flowers, there is overwhelming joy (by everyone I know) that spring has arrived in earnest. With a few eighty degree days forecast, the extended period of cold will be quickly forgotten. Emergence of flowers and foliage that are late will accelerate, and in another week the appearance of the garden is likely to be very typical for mid-April.

Fortunately, other than damaging winds from the nor’easter that blew through several weeks ago, the area has suffered little damage from snow, ice, or cold. Yes, there are brown leaves on nandinas, camellias, and hollies, but this is superficial. The winter daphnes (Daphne odora ‘Aureomarginata’, below) will lose most of their leaves, but shrubs are at peak bloom now, and other than a few small dead branches, they’ll be good as new in a few weeks.

This afternoon, hundreds of hellebore seedlings are evident. Most will be weeded out since there  is no sense in keeping this quantity of similar seedlings. A few from each grouping will be left to grow, and after a second or third year these will be transplanted. By the third, sometimes the fourth year, there will be flowers.