Spring bulbs, forcing cleanup

The allium and daffodil foliage started emerging a month ago, but cold weather slowed it down. (In recent years it's pushed out early and gotten zapped by late freezes.) Although only the crocus have started to bloom, I figured it was time...

...to clean up this bed. It is the first thing that people see when they drive past my house, so it should be something worth looking at, right? (It's where the rose support is, so maybe they're not noticing the mess?)

***

So much catnip growing here now, I'm really going to have to dig some out. (It doesn't help that I let it go to seed every year.) The old stems are all over the place, but easy enough to get rid of. Narrow borders are the best when you're doing cleanup, as it goes quickly and is easy to reach into the middle! I did slightly trample a few smaller plants, but not too badly.

After only a little effort, the new foliage is clearly revealed:

That's my big white allium in front, turning into an imposing clump.

Further back is one of the big purple globe-type alliums (I forget which exactly) with the amazing silver blue foliage:

And over here I'm not sure exactly what's going on. Some crocus, some daffodils maybe, but also some seedlings -- allium probably?

What, you say I missed some oak leaves during my cleanup? I like doing cleanup in multiple passes, as it's still possible for a hard freeze and I like to leave (hehe) a light mulch for critters.

Wait, though -- something weird going on here. Did you notice it in the first two photos?

Yellow foliage!  What's going on?

An exciting mutation, ready to take the springtime gardening world by storm?

Unfortunately, no. It's just the result of a lazy gardener leaving a huge summer pot in place too long. That's the drawback of the spring ephemerals (those plants that go dormant and disappear from the summer garden) -- it's difficult to remember exactly where they were!

Plus these plantings are all spreading, either from bulb division or by reseeding, so that makes it even harder to remember where they were. I love it!


That yellow foliage will soon green up -- no harm done.

.