Early Spring Flower Identification

It was a beautiful day last Sunday and I got to spend a few hours cleaning out last years dead flowers from the garden and removing layers of pine needles. It feels strange writing this as we got some surprise snow overnight (almost a foot and still coming down but more on that tomorrow - like the local weather forecaster I'm better the past then the future.)

As I was re-familiarizing myself with the space I made an embarassing discovery. The picture I posted last time of coneflowers, wasn't coneflowers. I was looking through thumbnails of flowers and was fooled by the color. The coneflowers aren't in that part of the garden. Forgive me.

Many of the flowers have started to sprout so I'm trying to guess what they are.

Flower: Iris

Certainty: 100% Iris have very distictive leaves and I spent many hours last summer digging them up and replanting them along the driveway. It was very dry afterwards and I was afraid they wouldn't come back. But they did. Now, will any of them flower this year?

Flower: Columbine

Certainty: 100% Columbine have very distinctive leaves. I have about a 50% success rate with Columbine plants that I buy. I'm less lucky with seeds (but I'm trying again this spring). I think it's a little to dry where I live. This columbine mysteriously appeared last spring in a place I know I didn't plant any seeds. It's coming back very vigorously this spring. Maybe my luck is changing.

Flower: Yarrow

Certainty: 100% Another flower with very distinctive leaves. Usually this time of the year I'm digging out yarrow, but this particular plant hasn't tried to take over the garden yet.

Flower: Maltese Cross

Certainty: 100% I spit this clump into three clumps last year. I can tell the plant by the bright yellow green color. There are still dead stalks for last year.

Flower: Bluebell or Coneflower

Cetainty: 20% You think I'd remember where the coneflowers are - there are several patches. Same with the bluebells - and the bluebells are spreading. After looking at them again yesterday I'm more convinced that they are bluebells. I positively identified a coneflower in another area of the garden and they are similar.

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