Today we’re celebrating spring with frequent GPOD contributor Carla Zambelli Mudry in Malvern, Pennsylvania.

Spring is finally back, and every day brings new discoveries in the garden—heirloom daffodils opening all over, shrubs starting to pop with little bits of fuzzy green. Once again, the first tree to bloom will be a volunteer native redbud (Cercis canadensis, Zones 4–9).

Enjoy the first days of spring!

Wonderful hellebores (Helleborus hybrids, Zones 5–9) are the dependable standby of the early spring garden.

Soft cream-colored hellebores are a great counterpoint to the intense yellow of the daffodils behind them.

This double hellebore has rows of extra petals spotted with purple. Behind it are some of the older blooms, which have begun to fade and flush green but are no less beautiful.

This wonderfully elegant heirloom daffodil looks like it might be the variety ‘Beersheba’ (Narcissus ‘Beersheba’, Zones 4–8).

A tree peony (Paeonia hybrid, Zones 3–8) pushes out new, red-flushed growth. Soon this will transform into green leaves and enormous flowers.

The stems are bare for now, but soon the garden shrubs will be showing green.

Who can have enough daffodils? This one has a dark orange corolla flanked by nearly white petals.

Nothing says spring like a classic bright yellow daffodil, which is about as cheerful as a flower can possibly be.

And, of course, don’t forget to bring some spring blooms inside to enjoy up closer.

 

Have a garden you’d like to share?

Have photos to share? We’d love to see your garden, a particular collection of plants you love, or a wonderful garden you had the chance to visit!

To submit, send 5-10 photos to gpod@taunton.com along with some information about the plants in the pictures and where you took the photos. We’d love to hear where you are located, how long you’ve been gardening, successes you are proud of, failures you learned from, hopes for the future, favorite plants, or funny stories from your garden.

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