Surprise Return Engagements

I love the surprises that emerge in the spring garden - those plants that I thought I'd said a last goodbye to with the first frost but nonetheless come peeking out of the ground in the spring. We had a weird winter here with too many freezing temps and lots of wind to stir that cold air up. My expectations for winter survivors were pretty low so I was shocked to see these emerge: angelonia augustifolia (maybe AngelMist Plum), a red penta, two acalypha wilkesiana, acalypha pendula, and a caladium. These are all "maybes" in Mt. Pleasant so after a mild winter I would have expected them to survive. But this year, not so much. All of them were in a very exposed, very windy corner of my yard with no overhead protection, no special mulching, no advantage working in their favor.

Being the obsessed gardener that I am, I'm now hovering over them and can't wait to see how quickly they grow. And I'm also on the lookout for other survivors. It is all part of what makes gardening so much fun, isn't it?