Coltsfoot

I Guess It’s Spring…

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Coltsfoot 2021

People have been sending me photos of coltsfoot they’ve come across – it’s really the first native spring flower here in NS. Until today, March 31, I hadn’t seen any myself.

These two flowers were lurking in the wooded patch beside my building. I went looking because that location becomes covered with their happy yellow faces. it’s an interesting plant – the leaves don’t appear until after the flowers have bloomed. 

So I guess it’s now officially spring here. Last year I saw coltsfoot on May 1. The earliest I’ve previously seen any was on April 14 in 2017. March 31 (actually my friend Marlene spotted some last week in her son’s back yard) is VERY early. 

The question now is how soon will we see Forsythia? In the past the first Forsythia has been close to the first of May.  It will certainly be earlier than that this year!

Coltsfoot In Bloom

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Yesterday it was gloriously sunny and the coltsfoot near the building just glowed. I forgot to photograph them – caught them today (which is overcast) so the flowers aren’t so bright.

Harbinger Of Spring

I saw forsythia in bloom yesterday as well – I imagine the first flowers actually appeared just after the middle of April but I just didn’t notice the new vegetation – but there they were yesterday, May 5 – in all their glory.

They’re shouting – “It’s Spring in Nova Scotia!” They make me feel like singing.

I saw coltsfoot on May 2 in 2015, last year I first noticed some April 15 2017. There’s no doubt the season is advancing each year – the fact that I didn’t notice the first flowers (besides the crocus in gardens which is earliest of all) is because we don’t have flower gardens here at the apartment building unlike at my townhouse where we had garden beds everywhere so we gardeners were primed to be poking around for signs of spring life!

I got back to quilting the quilt today – filling in the designs where I inadvertently left spaces that were just a bit too big. I’ve just finished creating three new embroideries so I can fill in some smaller spaces – tomorrow, I hope to get to those. Then the quilting of the border. Once I establish the size for the embroidery for the sides and top/bottom that will go quickly using an endless hoop which allows me to embroider and just move the fabric along. And binding – a couple of hours and that will be done.