An Iowa Garden

The foot of wet, heavy snow that blankets our garden is melting... glacially. Temperatures are predicted to rise above 50 degrees today, but snow still lays everywhere except for small, south-facing spots, where a few plants are emerging from the deep freeze that we call an Iowa winter. Sadie the cat went out this morning with me to see what was happening; she tried semi-successfully to walk on edging timbers and rockwork that is now sticking out of the snow, but a certain part of her anatomy is a little too large to perform this trick. Last spring, Brigitta Stewart of Arrowhead Alpines sent me a couple of miniature daffodils as a gift (she reads this blog from time to time). I was quite concerned when one of them, Narcissus fernandesii, put out all its new foliage in November; bulbs that put out fall foliage are a very mixed bag here when it comes to winter survivability, and usually at best look a little ratty in the spring; at worst, they rot. I was therefore very happy to see this little narcissus species out from under the snow, and with its foliage looking pretty good... I will say, that if it's possible for a plant to look a little stunned, that's how it looked; whether because it found it had made it through the winter, or that it found itself growing in the middle of Iowa instead of its native Spain and Portugal, I'm not sure. I thought I might speak a little Spanish to it to make it feel at home, but my Spanish is very limited: asking it where the bathroom is, or whether the beer is cold, probably would not do much for it. About all I know about this little daffodil otherwise, is that it has small, very intensely yellow flowers, with a strong jonquil smell. It is shown last spring in it's original pot in the lowest picture (it is the one at the bottom). So, bienvenido, poquito daffodil... mi jardin es su jardin ahora!