These last two days have been so spectacular — soft, sunny, and warm — that I can’t stand the thought of anyone being stuck indoors. I know I’m lucky (in a previous life I worked in a windowless office) and I wish you all could be out here with us. (If it’s any consolation, I’m inside now to work on this. But the door next to my desk is wide open and the greenhouse is behind me. I’m totally lucky.)

I had to include the above daffodil pictures in this post — they’re on their way towards peak — but before they blare every trumpet I feel justified in focusing on the spring tinies. Ephemerals like the trout lily (Erythronium americanum) that has speckled the Bosquet and every garden and is just beginning to bloom; tiny primroses (Primula veris vulgaris), and European ginger (Asarum europaeum) blooming almost invisibly in the Rock Garden; weird octopus’ garden foliage and buds of Muscari armeniacum ‘Valerie Finnis’; and the innocent-looking flowers and newly emerged foliage of butterbur (Petasites japonicus). There’s no indication that in 2 or 3 weeks time the butterbur’s leaves will be as big as tea tables…

(Click on any picture for a showier show and/or mouse over for captions.)

Speaking of innocent-looking, we started taking out, dividing, and moving around perennials that have grown close together in the Idea Garden. Everything is still so tiny that it’s hard to believe they’ll ever be shoulder height (some of them) and a lot of them look exactly alike (to me) at this stage. It was like a memory test to remember what’s what. And in fact it was hard enough for me to distinguish between the mountain mint (Pycnanthemum verticillatum) — which we want to replace with a showier P. muticum — and the Monarda fistulosa ‘Claire Grace’, planted side by side that I had to resort to the sniff test. Mountain mint definitely smells mintier… And we had to do some fancy footwork to avoid stepping on all of the perennials still so tucked in that we can barely even see them. But this is the perfect time to start to play musical perennials. We can even get away with stashing The Unplanted in bags in the shade for a week or two (I don’t mind making daylilies and rudbeckia wait even longer) until we figure out where they’ll live next.

Please tell me you were able to get into your garden to dig into (or just enjoy) spring’s tinies. (I’ll feel better if you have.)

Maybe it has something to do with the spareness of the January landscape (particularly when it’s a clean white and sky-blue); or maybe it’s because there’s little to distract us outside when the wind is blowing a gale and the temperature is toe nippingly frigid; or maybe because we’re still in a New Year’s resolution frame of mind; or maybe for all of those reasons combined and a few more I haven’t thought of, January seems to be the time to focus on getting organized. Time to clear the physical and mental clutter of the year (or years as the case may be) and start fresh.

Gail and I usually spend the month focused on organizing our seed orders and making wish lists and plans for the gardens. But this year we’re also tackling our work space in a way that we haven’t gotten to in recent years. Not to this extent anyway. In the past we (mostly Gail) have gone through the closet, cleared accumulated paperwork off flat surfaces and even made attempts at tidying the cellar. That in particular seemed an impossible task to both of us. (Mostly me.) I wish I had before pictures because it was pretty scary down there with debris that had become so elderly we (I) began to think it must be part of the archival collection. Broken hoses, soil turned to dust, endless mismatched trays, buckets, old labels for long dead plants, and a lattice work of cobwebs, enormous black crevice-dwelling spiders, the occasional bat, and a frog… All (aside from the critters but including our stored dahlia tubers) in great jumbles on a couple of rickety old benches and the floor.

Huge thanks go to Fred, Dan, and Nick who spent part of last week down there clearing out and setting up brilliant, super sturdy shelves along each wall. Suddenly we have a whole new uncluttered, uncreepy, and perfectly functional cellar storage area. A place for everything and everything in its place, as my grandmother used to say. It’s twice the size it was before, easy. Applause, applause!

That frees us up to rethink how we organize the potting shed, which has to function as our office, a volunteer break room, as well as our soil mixing, potting up, and seed starting area (what it was originally intended for). Now that we can store more supplies downstairs, we’re giving some thought to dismantling these cubbies (left) to open up the room for a more gracious break table and supplemental work surface. But we’re still on the fence about that – a little sentimental about the cubbies because they’re so much a part of the building’s antique charm. But whatever we decide, it’s beginning to feel like a New Year in here already.

Have you turned inward too to organize and tidy up this winter? (Gail has been working on her own cellar and I’ve been trying to reshelve mental clutter…)

Do you ever round a bend in your garden, maybe coming from a direction you don’t usually, and gasp at how pretty it looks? I hope so because it’s the best, most giddy feeling. Yesterday I walked up to the North Garden from the water side of the house, not my usual route to the garden, and even though it was almost too hot to care, I was amazed at its colors and exuberance. When the garden was redesigned this past winter I was a little nervous about the new corner bed by the stone bench, imagining that those right angles might feel a little harsh. No longer. Now I can’t believe there ever wasn’t a bed and path there. I’m thrilled about how everything has grown in so quickly and am head over heels for a few of our new plants too.

I never really appreciated yarrow until we planted Achillea millefolium ‘Pink Grapefruit’ in the herb bed a couple of years ago. Now I can’t get enough of its clouds and wouldn’t mind seeing them in every garden. There are enough varieties and color choices that we could really shake it up. The one in the North Garden is ‘Terra Cotta’. It’s more golden than I thought it would be but just orange enough for true love.

Turning that corner in the garden I was also able to re-appreciate a couple of plants that I’ve become bored and annoyed with. Long leaf speedwell (Veronica longifolia) is one. I can’t stand that it needs hooping to stand up straight and absolutely hate that we forgot to do that this year. But look at how sublime those blooms are in this monochromatic combo with Geranium ‘Rozanne’. I’ve had just about enough of that one too because we planted it in so many gardens (food for thought regarding my current obsession with yarrow) but removing her is not an option because she’s too darn perfect and willing to bloom for practically ever. As for the speedwell, we’ll have to sacrifice a few flowers and try whacking it back maybe next week. (Annie at Annie’s Annuals recommends offing it 10″ from the ground for a later rebloom.)

Has your garden surprised you lately? What are the plants you’re especially thrilled with right now? Are you patting yourself on the back for making excellent choices? (Or kicking yourself for missed opportunities?)

Everybody has a different cue for letting ourselves admit that it’s finally spring. For some of us (me), spring officially begins when we sow the sweet peas (back around President’s Day). Others might notice spring for the first time when the forsythia blooms its head off, or when we have that first t-shirt-weather day or when the calendar says it’s so.

For some, it’s all about daffodils and Daffodil Days here at Blithewold. Well, a lot of them (dare I say “most”?) are open and we’re opening for the season starting Sunday, so no one can deny that it’s really truly spring now. The daffodils should continue to be in peak into next week. They love these cooler temperatures.

We’ve been hustling to get ready and have had an extra spring in our step because of opening two weeks ahead of schedule to better match our timing with Nature’s. We’ve fluffed and we’ve puffed and from here on in it’s a work in progress. Like any real garden, ours are in perennial transition and change by the day. Every year we focus attention on a particular garden: this year the North Garden will look quite different from years past. We’re adjusting to a new design that should make the space more welcoming to visitors, and we’ll be in there planting and rearranging every chance we get.

Even if you come just to see the daffodils, don’t miss the Rock Garden. This is the start of its favorite season. And you can’t miss the Rose Garden unless you have your eyes closed coming out of the Visitor’s Center. Open ‘em up. That garden will just keep looking more and more glorious as days go by.

So stick around. Visit as often as you possibly can and celebrate a whole new season by enjoying every bloom of it.

A little more than a month ago in a post about potting bench perfection I mentioned that our potting bench was in a sorry state and that the windows above it were drafty heat-leakers. No longer true! Gail and I are thrilled to be cozy behind a bank of new storm windows and can’t get over the beauty of the shiny new stainless-steel bench topper that one of our favorite carpenters installed in about 2 seconds yesterday.

Winter is definitely the best time for dreaming about projects and for being able to follow through with minimal disruption to the day to day workings, or the visitors’ enjoyment of the property. It was easy for us to clear the bench because we’re more focused on putting our orders together right now than potting up.

And because there are fewer visitors on the property this time of year, we can get to some changes outside too. The North Garden wall repair was completed in record time and has provided us (the gardens and grounds staff) with an excellent opportunity to ask the gardens and grounds committee to consider a few of our ideas. We’d like to re-size some of the beds, improve the soil, add irrigation, and lay a path that will tie the floating fountain, which at one time had been the punctuation at the end of a bowling green, back to the garden. With spring clearly closer than it usually is this time of year, it looks like this next project might get rolling soon. We hope all of Blithewold’s members, visitors, and brides think it’s an improvement.

Are you using this time to make some improvements to home and garden too?