It’s been in the mid-80s for the past 2 days, and mid-70s for days before that. We are skipping straight ahead to summer.

Usually my daffodils bloom the last week of March. They’ve been blooming a few weeks now. The forsythia bloomed for about a week, and it’s now going green. The lonicera have mostly shed their blossoms and are leafing out in that delicious, rich lime green color. Nothing is more welcome than that color after months of gray and brown.

My pink azaleas bloomed today, and I noticed the purple Japanese wisteria that lives in the backyards of people along the main road I travel is blooming as well. This is about a month ahead of schedule, as I recall. My Japanese maple went from twigs to full canopy in about three days. I know this is “weather,” and not so much a symptom of global warming, but I am feeling that that is a distinction without a difference. I am in a slight panic about the state of the planet. This happens every year.

On the upside, I have one camellia bloom now. My camellias are trudging along, behaving sullenly as they have done since I planted them. I’m beginning to accept they’ll have to be moved around, but I truly don’t have a great site for them.

The most charming plant in the world is blooming as well: Sanguinaria canadensis. It has doubled in size since I planted it last year, which is more luck that I can truly believe. It will break my heart next year, I am sure, just as my Trillium luteum seem to be doing this year. I planted them two years ago and waited anxiously last year for them to come up. Just as I had given up hope, there they were, and they thrilled me more than I can say. I cheered them on as if they were small children who’d just fought off a playground bully: “I am so proud of you! Look what you did! I left you alone and you came back and bloomed all by yourself! You’re going to be just fine, aren’t you? You’re a big, strong thing. You can take care of yourself. Let me give you a treat. How about some nice compost?” And I felt truly accomplished, feeling I had seen them along to that magical status: established. The stage at which the plants move off to college and take care of themselves, save an occasional assist from mom.

Then, a week or so ago, I went to a talk by staff from Niche Gardens who remarked in passing that this was blooming, that was blooming, the trilliums were blooming…what? No, they’re not. We still have a month left, right? But I was advised that with the warm weather we’d had and was to come this past week, they’d be up and going very soon if not already.

I kept vigil in my patch where the trilliums are. Or were. Their neighbors, the Polygonatum odoratum are up now. The Epimedium that are supposed to be evergreen here but are not, are showing new growth. Even the Epimedium roseum that I thought had died weeks after I planted it last spring is back on the scene! But no trilliums. I swept aside the top layer of soil, hoping to see little buds of something pushing up. I can’t find them anywhere. I am devastated. And the buggers cost $15 apiece.

I am also not seeing any sign of the poppies I sowed last year. It is supposed to be ridiculously easy to grow poppies. You throw out seed in the fall and they come up everywhere in the spring. I have tried this for several years in a row. It is a lie. And poppies do not like transplanting (I’ve tried that, too). I fear I am going to have to learn to live without, but I won’t like it.