Spring is in the air! The first blooms of the year are always the best and so precious. Are you seeing any spring flowers in your garden?

Witch hazel (Hamamelis sp.) are of course the epitome of early flowering. The flowers unfurl their delicate golden thread-like petals on the first warm-ish days of the year, and curling back up tight when it turns cold again, so they can sail through whatever unpredictable weather spring brings.

Winter honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima) is another shrub that flowers super early in the spring or even in late winter. The small, white flowers aren’t the showiest in the world, but they smell so good, and that scent is just what we need after all the snow.

If you aren’t growing hellebores (Helleborus orientalis), you really need to rethink your life choices. Hellebores thrive in shade, tolerate drought, are deer resistant, and bloom incredibly early in the spring. They come in an ever widening range of colours and forms, and this lightly spotted pink is a lovely one.

As the weather continues to warm, on comes the tulips (Tulipa) and violas (Viola x wittrockiana). Violas are essentially small-flowered versions of pansies, and are generally much tougher and produce more flowers. They are best planted in the autumn, where they will over winter and greet the spring with incredible masses of blooms which are not only beautiful, but often fragrant and even edible!