signs of spring

It's still the middle of winter, but it's just starting to turn the corner.  I noticed the very first signs of spring in the garden this weekend.  The first was this little pale purple spring star.  The leaves have been above ground since the autumn, courtesy of my mother in law who gave me dozens of the tiny bulbs.  This is the first brave blossom to come up, hopefully there will be dozens more like it.

Around the back bed I planted some miniature bulbs in the autumn, iris reticulata (a tiny, miniature iris) and a species tulip (small wild tulips, I can't remember which kind though!).  I was weeding the bed when I noticed a few strong shoots like this one.  I can't wait to see if it's a tulip or an iris!

There will still be plenty of cold winter days to come before it's really spring, but I enjoy finding these little signs that it's not too far off.  Now if we could only get more rain!  It should be bucketing down this time of year but we keep getting little more than light showers.  And we're heading into another El Nino year which means even more drought in the summer.  Did I mention the dams that service Melbourne are at 26% of their capacity?  I used to think a "drought" was 30 days without rain, but they take droughts seriously here.  We've been in drought for 12 years.