If you are looking in the garden each day to see what’s emerging and flushing out, you are not alone. If you have these five plants in your garden you’re already seeing the start of this year’s garden season.

Bleeding Heart
Bleeding Hearts are the classic, elegant sign of spring in the shade garden. The more shade these plants have the longer they stay viable in the garden. If they get more sun and a bit dry, they will go dormant and greet you again next spring.

Pulmonarias: Variegated foliage leeds the eye to clusters of pink-purple flowers in the earliest days of spring. Mine have been in bloom for weeks adding great spring color to the shade gardens.

Sweet woodruff: This light and airy ground cover’s foliage has an appealing soft green color. Tiny white blooms are starting to emerge mid-April.

Nepeta: Did this grow overnight? It appears so! Healthy mounds of upright green foliage dots the focal garden. Set against the copper-brown of the pine straw, the contrast is striking and will be even more dramitic when inbloom 

Monarda: In early April a thick carpet of young Monarda is visible in the garden. While this may not bloom for a while yet, the sight of all the green foliage with hints of red is a wonderful sight in the early spring garden.