It’s February 2nd and it’s ground hog day. Ground hogs all over Canada have predicted an early spring. Yeahhhhhhhhh!

I have my own spring predictors right here in my yard though. My roses. It was such a nice day out today, my husband decided to take down our Christmas lights. A short while after he went outside he came in excitedly and said “you’d better come look at your roses!”. I asked him ” why, is something wrong???”. He just said- “come and see and bring the camera”.

It might be a bit hard to see in this photo, but my roses – all that I checked- have tiny red leaf buds starting to grow! Wow! I’ve never seen leaf buds so early. Gee, it’s usually at least sometime in April before I start to see leaf buds on my roses. (see larger picture for more detail)

I can’t believe it! It’s been such a warm winter here in Toronto. I think November and the very beginning of December was colder and more winter like than the rest of December and January. My garden is usually covered in at least a foot of snow at this time of year, and it’s usually freezing!

Now that I have leaf buds on my roses we are bound to get a very cold snap. Especially now that I said it, too!

In the late fall my garden was covered in layers and layers of leaves. We gathered about 40 or more bags of leaves from various neighbours and poured the leaves onto the garden beds. The roses were mounded with a mix of peat and soil first. Then after the leaf topping we put burlap around most of our roses.

Since I can’t actually see the ground of most of my flower beds since they are covered in leaves, I’ll just have to assume that my tulips and other bulbs are probably poking their head out of the earth and growing leaves too.

Hmmm my crocus’ usually come up out of the lawn in mid to late March and I usually count these as my first signs of spring. I’ll bet ya that my crocus’ come up in the next week or two if this weather holds!

To all those enjoying beautiful unseasonably warm weather- rejoice! Spring is just about here. To those that are still buried under the snow and shivering in the cold .. I feel for you, but spring will come to you soon too.

Spring! Wow. I’m starting to think about my garden now.

If you want to see an almost up to date list of what’s growing in my garden see my gardenweb members page.

Ground hog day in Canada – Groundhogs report what many in Cda already believe: spring is coming early

’til next time,

Tricia