Sweet Surprises

February is not generally a busy gardening month. Usually I just content myself with indoor blooms this time of year. I saw this little geranium seedling popping up in October, so I rescued it by planting it in a pot to spend the winter indoors. See how it rewarded me? Such a tall bloom for such a tiny little plant. That's not even a regular size coffee cup, it's just a mini one!

 And this kitchen begonia has been blooming for months now. Gorgeous. 

But with the mild winter that many of us have been enjoying, I thought I'd go out to see if the garden was waking up early. Boy was it ever! My first stop in the winter is always my Angelina Sedum. I know I've shown it here many times, but seriously, this plant is a winter show stopper. Look at the colors! I absolutely need to plant more of this one.

 I could show you all kinds of little plant babies popping up out there, but most of them are just little green specks. This one really caught my eye though, and I'm not even sure what it is. I think it's an agastache of some kind.

Of course there are all kinds of bulbs popping up, especially swelling daffodils. They will certainly be early this year.

Violas and pansies are still hanging in there, no surprise.

I also figured the hellebores would be heading towards blooming, and I was right.

So as I was casually studying my late winter garden, I turned around to find the sweetest surprise of all. Not in a million years did I expect to find the Siberian Iris in bloom. To say I was thrilled is putting it mildly! This is a full month earlier than they bloomed last year.

I'm so happy that I went out to check on the garden yesterday. It brought me such a sweet, sweet surprise!