Mertensia virginica in bud!

I planted this Virginia bluebells plant(mertensie de Virginie) last year, past the blooming season, so this is a first for me. You can see two clusters of small pale pink buds, which will grow into beautiful blue bells. Yay!

Waldsteinia fragarioides in bud!

Somehow while I was distracted by all the early-flowering bulbs, this nice clump of barren strawberry (waldsteinie faux-fraisier) popped up! If you click the photo to enlarge it, you will see a number of nice plump flower buds, which surpised me because I thought this plant didn't bloom so early. You can also see fading Iris reticulata and a small Aquilegia seedling (don't know if it's native A. canadensis or non-native A. vulgaris) in front of the Waldsteinia, and some kind of lovely fern that stayed green all winter behind the Waldsteinia (haven't identified it yet).

Everything's in bud

...just in time for me to go away for a week. Hopefully I'll be able to see most of these blooms when I get back...
Sedum (don't know which one).

Rudbeckia hirta (black-eyed Susan).

Monarda didyma 'Jacob Cline' (beebalm).

Lilium 'Dot Com' (Asiatic lily).

Liatris spicata (blazing star).

Lavandula angustifolia (lavender).

Hosta (don't know which one).

Hemerocalis fulva (orange daylily).
(I would not plant this myself as it is considered invasive in our area but my landlord's son is very attached to it.)

Heliotropium arborescens (heliotrope).

Helianthus annuus (sunflower).

Echinacea purpurea (purple coneflower).

Astilbe (don't know which one).

Asclepias tuberosa (butterfly weed).

Last but not least, Dionaea muscipula (Venus flytrap). Since this little one is portable, it's coming with me!

Matricaria recutita foliage and flower buds

The German chamomile has self-sown and will be blooming soon. At this young age, you can really see the family resemblance to pineapple weed (Matricaria discoidea).

Asclepias tuberosa foliage and flower buds

My butterfly weed was slow coming up (normal for this plant) but has really shot up in the last couple of weeks. Although it's closely related to common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), butterfly weed does not have milky sap, and as you can see the foliage is much narrower. I'm happy to see loads of flower buds. Butterfly weed is one of the few bright orange native flowers in our area—here's a photo from last year.

I bought this plant a few years ago at the Superstore at Don Mills and Eglinton. That year, President's Choice had a line of native plants, but they don't seem to have this line any more. Perhaps native plants can't withstand the rigors of spending weeks in a supermarket parking lot waiting to be sold?

Rubus sp.: foliage and flower buds

Plants in the genus Rubus, subgenus Idaeobatus, known in English as "raspberries" and in French as framboisiers, are thorny shrubs native to many parts of the world.

This plant volunteered in our back yard last year. I'm looking forward to the delicious fruit!

Alliara petiolata: flower buds

This is an extremely invasive species in Toronto. Although I just posted a whole long thing about why garlic mustard is evil, I haven't posted a picture of the flower buds. I was disheartened to see it's that time of year again already. Photo taken at Wilket Creek Park.

Eranthis hyemalis: first growth

As I mentioned earlier, I was worried that my winter aconite (Eranthis hyemalis) wasn't coming back this year, since the neighbours' snowdrops (Galanthus nivalis) and crocuses are already up, and my aconite hadn't shown up at all. So you can imagine how thrilled I was to see this tiny, not-yet-opened winter aconite emerging in front of the house this morning.

I rooted around under the leaves and found two more baby Eranthis. (And then I tucked them in under their blanket of leaves once again.) Maybe tomorrow I will have a photo of a fully-opened bloom to post!

(I'm not sure what those long thin leaves are, but they are definitely not the aconite, which has leaves like a clown's ruffle under the flower.)

Juglans cinerea (I hope) Juglans nigra at the end of winter

Juglans cinerea, known in English as "butternut" or "white walnut", and in French as noyer cendré, noyer blanc, or noyer à beurre, is a deciduous tree native to eastern North America. Currently butternut is endangered in Canada, because of a canker disease which has killed up to 90% of butternut trees (which were not common to start with).

This tree, and its twin (not shown), caused a bit of consternation as we attempted to identify them. My landlord's son was convinced they were a weed; he was probably confusing it with Ailanthus altissima, an invasive species here in southern Ontario. Luckily the people at Dave's Garden were able to confirm that this is not Ailanthus, though there was no agreement on what it is. Here's a close up of the fuzzy buds, for what it's worth. And here's the bark, which doesn't seem right for butternut but doesn't seem right for the other leading possibility (black walnut, Juglans nigra) either. I haven't seen flowers or nuts on this tree, but maybe it will produce some this year and I'll be able to ID it.

Update March 29

After I posted a photo of the chambered pith in a twig from this tree, plant identification guru Resin at Dave's Garden confirmed that it is Juglans nigra (black walnut), not the endangered butternut. It's still a nice native tree and I'm sure the squirrels will be happy when it produces nuts!