Are your daffodils coming up already?

It may only be early February but there are signs of life in my garden here on the Cape. Yesterday I was so excited to find four inches of daffodil foliage in my woods. I planted 50 new bulbs last October and I think they have all come up. Don't worry that the frost will damage them, they are pretty tough and it will be awhile before they don a flower.
I also saw leaves on my autumnn crocuses, they produce leaves in spring that die back during the summer and beautiful large pink flowers in the fall. Worth the wait.

Forsythia forcing for indoor flowers

Who doesn't want spring flowers in their home in late February and March? This is the time, on a lovely sunny day like today, to pop outdoors and cut some branches from spring flowering shrubs like Forsythia and Quince. Not too many though or you won't get to enjoy them outside this spring.  To get a head start on spring you can cut a few, recut the stem at an angle and put them in a vase of slightly hot water. I put them down in the basement for a few weeks but keep an eye on them and bring them into the warm of your house just as they start to open up.