Today is April 15th, and that means it’s Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day. Huzzah! On the 15th of each month, garden bloggers take snapshots of what is currently blooming in the gardens. Then they upload the photos as bloom day posts. And then they run over to May Dreams Gardens and share a link to their garden blogs. This way you are able to visit the links after Carol’s bloom day post and view what is blooming in gardens around the world. How cool is that?!

The Lot has spent a week soaked in chilly, spring rain. Not much is blooming right now except for a lone grape hyacinth, the snow drops that have been rocking out since last bloom day (the party has gotten bigger), the resident hellebore (lenten rose), and a smattering of crocus. Even the daffodils in the southern bed aren’t quite ready to debut yet.

Since this is the case, I instead photographed the Grand Ideas Garden located at our local extensions office. This garden is cared for by many Master Gardener Volunteers. The GIG is open for the public to enjoy, and often used as an outdoor classroom and hands-on training grounds for the Master Gardener Volunteers. I was fortunate enough to join a pruning class there today. Afterward, I snapped a few photos.

This little tree is a witch hazel. I am uncertain if it is the native witch hazel of the area since those usually bloom from October-November. This one has been blooming since last month. The flowers on the witch hazel are really unique, the petals being almost like thin, yellow ribbons attached to the branches.

I liked how these crocus were planted en masse as a variety of color popping up from the leftover leaves.

This scilla was really pretty with the leftover ornamental grasses in the back and some perennial leaves from last season. Unlike the Lot’s more classic blue scilla, these were white with baby blue lines drawn from center to tip of each petal.

Here’s a more macro shot showing how the bulbs are placed throughout the landscape. There are bits of color popping up all over.

Here’s a macro shot showing more of the mixture of spring bulbs. Check out that witch hazel in the back left. Love it.

Okay, off to May Dreams Gardens to view what the other gardeners have in store for this month!