It’s still early spring here in Ontario so there’s lots of new things sprouting all the time, the reliable favourites and new plants you’re happy to see come back. All of the plants in this post were just newly planted last year.

Probably the showiest new foliage is my Euphorbia ‘First Blush’ – I need to cut back last years dead stems tomorrow but I’m thrilled to see it looking this good already.

This one is not the most thrilling but it’s the one I’m most thrilled with. Paeonia tenuifolia ‘Plena’. Here, let me Google that for you. Are you thrilled yet? The flowers and the foliage are both stunning and I could not be happier to see this alive and growing this spring.

My Iris bucharica are coming along and starting to look like little plants now. They still have a ways to go before they flower but they still look good.

And here is my overwintered clump of Primula marginata ‘Mauve Mist’ doing its best Agave impression, with spiky leaves and cones of leaves in the center. Hopefully these will flower for me soon but at least they look awesome even out of bloom until then.

I already had a hardy cactus in my garden but last year I got a new one to keep in a container. The one in the garden usually makes it through looking absolutely awful but the potted one, other than falling over (now propped up with bbq skewers) under the weight of the snow looks pretty good. I’m hoping it will flower this year. If it does and it’s a lot like the one I already have I’ll probably get rid of the old one. If it’s different… I guess I’ll try potting up the older one too and see if it does any better that way.

Opuntia macrorhiza

Another new plant and the only “tropical” in the list I have three Typhonium venosum corms which have already sprouted, the main one which has gone into an 8″ pot this year and two offsets (of 7, 4 are a decent size, the others are really small and may not have made it) in a 6″ pot. Sprouts are still pretty small but you get the idea.

Typhonium venosum