Stretching one's imagination

I have been quiet for an awfully long time. I have been watching the snow melt. Literally, sitting by the window and watching it melt, or checking the melting process several times a day. Impatient? Me? Where did you hear that?

It has finally melted in most places. There are only some places in shade that still harbour small amounts of snow. Now the sight is ugly. Everything is brown or grey and there's very little of any other colours in the scenery. I spotted some yellow coltsfoot flowers during the weekend, so this can be officially called spring now.

My garden looks dreadful of course. It doesn't look like a garden at all. There's greyish brown dead lawn and deep brown soil with some dead twigs sticking from it. It actually requires a good amount of vivid imagination to have an idea what it could look like in summer.

Lush and mostly green. But instead, it looks like this:

The picture above is one of the most promising views. There´s something growing! These are tulip leaves emerging from the bulbs I have planted last fall. I planted over 1000 bulbs last fall, so I expect something to bloom as well. Well, there are some petite flowers to be seen already. Like the Crocus below.

But mostly anything that is even remotely growing looks like these:

Yes, if you look closely, you can see something red peeking out from the ground. That's a peony.

This actually starts to look like a plant. It's an Aquilegia. I can't remember what cultivar it is - if it is any known variety - before I see the flower. I imagine it will take some time before I get to that recognition part... 

Two more peaks of another peony...

What is that? SOme spring bulb, I'm sure, but is it Scilla or what?

This one reminds me of an Amorpophahallus or a Calla flower, but it's actually another tulip's first leaves. All of the leaves of this variety emerging from the soil look the same. Then again, I must have lost the name tag because I have no idea what variety is this. 

This actually looks green! It's an oriental poppy. Must be 'Princess Victoria Louise'. Or at least that's what it's supposed to be. The seeds were sown last year and by the time they were about to bloom the weather was so cold and wet that the blooms just went rotten and didn't open at all. So this could be anything. 

Strawberries! They are walking wild all over my flower bench. Apparently it's evergreen.

Yeah... is this a Scilla then? It must be... it doesn't look like Muscari.