Spring in Spokane

Mother Nature decided to celebrate April Fool's Day in Spokane. She let us think spring had arrived on the first day of April, then hit us with a snowstorm that night. This morning we awoke to 3 or 4 inches of snow. My purple crocuses that were so adorable yesterday are feeling a bit smothered today.


Actually, it didn't really feel like spring yesterday with the temperatures in the upper 30's F. But I bundled up and got a bit of gardening done anyway (and felt pretty healthy the whole time, hooray!). I should have known something was coming when several of the Seattle bloggers mentioned snow early this week. Over here in eastern Washington, the weather systems reach us a few days after hitting Seattle and rest of the western side of the state.


Yesterday I enjoyed beautiful pictures of dogwoods in North Carolina on Freda Cameron's blog. My dogwood looks pretty today, too.


Yesterday I pulled the rest of the mulch away from my rosebushes. The buds are swelling but the leaves haven't broken out yet. Last week three roses arrived from Regan Nursery, and I planted a couple of impulse-buy roses from Costco the week before. Hopefully the snow will melt quickly so I can plant the ones from David Austin that are scheduled to arrive tomorrow. I'm not worried about the snow damaging them as all of the roses I plant are fairly hardy, and they're not too vulnerable as long as they haven't leafed out.


While transplanting a few things to make room for the new roses, I enjoyed the new foliage of my delphiniums. The white-flowering ones have lovely green leaves, and the new leaves of the purple ones are maroon.


While puttering around outside, I tried to ignore the primroses in my front porch pot that I keep forgetting to water. The porch is open on the south and west sides, so it traps the low winter sun and really heats up on sunny afternoons. I forget to go out there to water the pot during cold weather, so my primroses got fried.


Like Catherine, I picked up an unlabeled hellebore from Home Depot this week. Mine wasn't on the clearance rack, but $10 for a 1-gallon hellebore is still a good price. The ones I ordered from Heronswood were twice as expensive and will probably be half the size. But they're both going to be PINK and that makes up for a lot. I'll post more on them when they arrive in a couple of weeks.


Ignoring the fact that it was definitely too cold to lounge around outside, I unstacked our plastic Adirondack-knockoff chairs (someday we'll get nicer ones!) and arranged them around the patio. We'll get to use them eventually.


This morning I was going to have the children clean their rooms so I could vacuum, but instead I'm sitting at the computer while they romp outside. The snow is wet and perfect for snowmen.


Waiting for spring in Spokane is tiresome, but I do have some consolation. Last night I stocked up on clearance rack sweaters and long-sleeved shirts at the Eddie Bauer Outlet during their Spring Sale. At least I'll have plenty of opportunities to wear them before the weather gets too warm!

A note from Tuesday, April 7, 2009: Less than a week after the kids built their snowmen, we had two sunny days of 70+ degree F weather. In our sheltered backyard, the temperature climbed well above that, so the kiddos pulled out their swimsuits and a sprinkler and had a great time getting wet. No more complaints about Spokane's spring from me (for a while)!