The past seven days have seemed like they came strait out of a week in April or even May! We’ve had an unprecedented warm spell with many days being in the 60s and three of those days in the 70s which is more 70+ degree days in February then Des Moines has ever had before. …

I was going to make a post about how to create winter interest in the garden but it seemed like we really didn’t have much of one this year. This month we’ve really only had 4 days with temperatures cool enough to call winter-like and the one time we did have a 3″ snowfall it …

Today the first flower of 2017 opened an award that goes to this single Snowdrop ( Galanthus Elwesii ) This is exactly one week later then last years first making it the second year in a row with mid winter blooms. This bloom comes earlier then the average first flower, typically Snowdrops bloom here about …

Spring is over and the humidity of another long Iowa summer has arrived. The foliage of Tulips and other spring flowers that once graced that landscape last month are starting to fade and the garden goes through a transition from spring bloomers to early summer flowers. Flowers during this season are very important to be …

Spring continues to trek on and it’s not stopping for no one! We are on the spring seasons last flowers as spring bulbs give way to a flurry of other spring favorites including Crab apples, Redbuds as you saw last week and of course Lilacs which are in full bloom right now and have been …

What a beautiful time of year to be in our area! Mid spring is upon us and one can definitely tell as signs of spring’s beauty can be seen at every turn. Currently all of the mid spring flowering trees are in full flower even the well known Lilac is blooming and while these and …

We had the April showers last week with some thunderstorms and rain and we definitely now have the flowers! Unfortunately those thunderstorms came with several cold fronts that brought a roller coaster of temperatures and high winds leading to a couple of nights in which it froze hard. This cold weather really slowed things down …

Cool weather even snow showers over the weekend put a damper on spring and really slowed things down, however it has warmed back up and today it was in the middle 60s putting everything is back on track, at least until the next snow comes tomorrow! Most noticeable this week are Crab Apple trees, they …

A rush of spring warmth has ushered in a new season and with this new season comes my annual posts giving coverage of the arrival of spring to the area. Spring has officially sprung with several species of “early risers” in bloom including Crocus, Snowdrops and Winter Aconite. Several other spring favorites are showing up …