Finding Treasures

One silver lining of moving into a new place is finding treasure tucked away in gardens that were planted by someone else at long time ago.  This home has a yard that tells me this was once a well-loved home with a well-loved yard.  We've been finding all sorts of treasures in the flower beds and I know there are many more hidden treasures that haven't started to come up yet. 

One of the first things we found (besides crocus) was a huge planting of forsythia so I couldn't resist bringing in a jar full of branches to force an early bloom -such a cheery plant to bring indoors.  Then we found hellebores, what a beautiful bloom these have.

Then my nose led me to this gorgeous plant, Rose Daphne, and I've since found several more - two yesterday that are tucked under huge evergreens and in desperate need of transplanting to somewhere they won't be covered in needles and will get some light.  They have the most delicious scent of anything I've smelled and rank right up there with plumeria, old roses and lilacs as personal favourites.

We've also found loads of Prairie Crocus (in a deeper purple than the ones I had in our old garden), Grape Hyacinth, tulips (E is thrilled - he missed the tulips at our old home so much) and yesterday I also spied tiny buds of hyacinth coming up in one bed.

Lovely!  And now, although I can tell what to expect in many of the beds due to the leaves and stalks left from last year, I can't wait to see what else we come across that is still hidden from view beneath the soil.