Tulips & Other Surprises

We’ve had a few other flowers and unidentifiable plants pop up in the yard over the last two weeks! So I thought I’d give you a rundown, starting with my favorite.

A few weeks ago, I noticed some suspiciously flower-like leaves popping up next to our birch tree in the front yard. Lo-and-behold, on April 16, I noticed the flower bud.

A few days later, when it started to open, the shape became more distinctive. A tulip! Probably!

A lot of our neighbors have tulips in a variety of colors, but I think this color is my favorite. When it bloomed fully, we were in for quite a treat.

It looks like the only one that’s going to pop up this spring. Since tulips are bulb flowers, I guess it will pop up again next year. Although I’m still a little fuzzy on the details of how bulb flowers work. It would be fun to see if we could get a few more in this location since it seems happy here, under the birch tree. More research is required…

Grape Hyacinths

Next to the tulip, you can see that we are also getting some grape hyacinths. These have been popping up for a few weeks now in random spots in our back yard. There’s also quite a collection of them growing under the birch tree.

We have noticed tons of these in our neighbors yards as well. Apparently they are bulb plants, too. I don’t know much about these, but I’m happy to encourage them, or at the very least, just let them grow as they like!

Violas

While planting some of the white vinca near the fence line, I noticed these pretty little shade-dwelling flowers.

Upon closer inspection, they looked like pansies. Which was puzzling to say the least.

After doing a little bit of research, however, I determined they are violas of some sort. There are like 100 different kinds of violas, so I’m not exactly sure which kind, but they look a little bit like the Labrador variety. There are three different spots along the fence line where they are growing, so I’m excited to see if they can survive and spread further!

Two Unidentifiables

There are, of course, tons of unidentified plants in our yard, but here are two that I’m currently really curious about.

The first is a leafy, groundcover-like plant with these pretty pink/purple flowers. It grows in several locations in the yard, mostly in partially shady/partially sunny spots, but there’s also some in a spot that rarely gets sunlight.

The other is a leafy plant that looks almost like a tree sprout. I don’t think they are tree sprouts, but I’m honestly not sure what they are. There are tons of them in the front yard right now. I don’t really want to pull them up until I figure out what they are and if we want to keep them.

So I think that covers our current collection of surprise plants. If anything else fun pops up, I’ll let you know. Otherwise, in a few days I’ll have to do an update on the sunflower situation. :3