Again, I’ve failed to order spring flowering snowdrops, winter aconites, and crocus that will be sorely missed in this late winter. At least this year I can’t blame forgetfulness. I wasn’t late with my order, just too late in this year of skyrocketing demand so that all were sold out by the time I got around to it. Maybe next year.

I can’t complain much about the number of snowdrops in the garden. I planted a few hundred in the rear garden a few years ago, and oldtimers are bulking up along the front walk. Immediately after flowering I must dig and divide some of the heaviest clumps, but there are plenty of places I’d like more and I should plant a few hundred every year.

In recent years there have been scattered snowdrops flowering before the first of the year, with a few more this year until all were flattened by snow early in January. Just when the snow began to melt along the shaded front walk, a second snow flattened them again. Probably, no harm will come of it, but there have been no flowers since the first few days of the new year. Of course, I’m anxious for more.

The numbers of winter aconites and crocuses are ridiculously small, and here is my greatest failing. There are no more than a handful of each, and of course there should be many more. I treasure the earliest snowdrops, and without a cover of snow one variety or the other flowers until late in February, but I am most enthused when they’re joined by yellow winter aconites, then purple crocuses.

I suppose there are enough daffodils, but again there are plenty of spaces to fit in dozens, or hundreds. Every year the bulb catalogs arrive in early summer, and routinely I set them aside. No way I’ve giving them my money until it’s closer to the time to deliver, but then one thing or another distracts me and none are ordered.