The garden looks so innocent in March. The gardener thinks to themselves, well this is so easy. Pull a little weed here, an old leaf there, easy peasy, I can handle this.

The garden will unfold, hesitantly at first and then intensify at an alarming rate. It may be the middle of April before you realize that it's getting away from you. Between now and then we have this wonderful honeymoon period, before the poison ivy sprouts, the gnats fly and the heat gets to our peony blossoms. You must take advantage of every day. The first peepers, the first primrose, all of that stuff is now and it's glorious.

I get giddy from the helleborus and honeybees, even the pruning is like a call to action, our first chance to flex our muscles. The feeling of accomplishment on a brisk cool day will put you on top of the world. So while we putter and work in the early spring garden, it's nice to add a few things that make an early appearance. Just a few delightful little things that keep us company. The best part, there are a lot of plants that do, spunky fellas that can take freezing nights.

Helleborus are on top of the list and Helleborus foetidus has been flowering for months. The green sepals that make up the appearance of a cluster of flowers may be tinged in red. The foliage is split and dark green which makes for a nice backdrop to the flowers. Commonly known as the stinking hellebore, if the leaves are crushed, you get a stinky odor. It is also known as the bearclaw hellebore, from the way the leaves are divided. When found in the wild, which is in Europe and England, it is most commonly found on shale and limestone. Hint, give it a little lime. A tough plant by any standard, you can grow this species in sun or shade. Drought tolerant and deer resistant, hello!, we have a winner.

I have a few primrose starting to flower, I just can't get over how cold hardy the flowers are. What will join them soon are many of the spring ephemerals or spring flowering bulbs. Blue scillas and grape hyacinths can be electric in spring. And did you know that a grape hyacinth smells like grapes? They are named that for the cluster of flowers, like a bunch of grapes, but really, give it a whiff. The flowers persist for a very long time, flowering with daffodils and tulips.

If you grow bleeding hearts, you know how wonderful they are. Well you can start the spring earlier with Corydalis 'George P. Baker'. The flowers are a dusky pink, the foliage is a blue-green and lobed and it's closely related to bleeding hearts. Generally blooming by the end of March, it's just another tough corydalis that thrives in Virginia. A little thing, ideal with primrose and grape hyacinths.

As the daffodils start and the helleborus carry on, I have the earliest flowering spirea in my partial sun garden. Spirea thunbergii 'Fujino Pink' is in flower by the end of March and the delight of any flower arrangers garden. The wispy stems carry these tiny clusters of pink flowers and it's just the most perfect thing to cheer you up on a windy March day. When the garden is well behaved.