LOL, Carl. The first thing I thought was, "Hey! Copycat!"

That's a rather impressive find, I must say. Other than some other bulbs sticking through, and a rather limp-looking rudbeckia leaf here and there, I have no new growth on any perennials yet. Definitely not on my peonies!

:)
Dee

I think I've seen peonies come up *very* early some years - as in December January early.

Here, the pussy willow is starting to come out. I've had pussy willows in the swamp forever, but everything was so high up you could barely tell that's what they were. A few years ago, I ordered one to trial as a potential screen plant. That one is visible.

All I have so far are the short blades of iris, greening up. Oh, I'm so ashamed: no signs of peonies, no bulbs, nothing but lots of healthy invasive ajuga repens sneakily taking over the garden beds and grass edges. And, now I look again, lots of tough ailanthus seedlings all over the place. The kind that can't be pulled out because of deep root but have to be dug up or cut off with the hope that the plant will be so discouraged it will stop. Hah.

That's the MA town garden. In the country, the RI garden seems to have been quietly growing things all winter. Nothing but small buds on the plants I love, but eager, coarse rank growth on the ones I don't cherish, such as honeysuckle, bittersweet, wild rose, and wild grape. Soon: skunk cabbage.

Carol

I was just outside, spending my lunch hour cutting back perennials (I've got dozens of nepeta, which always gets a lot bigger than I think it should, sprawling along the paving and draping the bottoms of the hydrangeas) and I spotted quite a few new green leaves on Walkers Low. They're self-mulching, I guess, and as the spent foliage darkens and begins to disintegrate, it starts to hold (maybe even generate) a more heat.

That was the good news; the bad is that bitter cress, or maybe hairy cress, is all over this garden and is about to flower. If you see more green in your beds than you expect, take a close look and, if you see cress, try to get it before it flowers. This photo isn't mine, but it shows the plant (about 1 inch tall) very well:

your post inspired me to scrabble around in the leaf-mulch and i am please to report the discovery of peony buds under there.
yay!

Lucky you! I measured the snow in the backyard by the poppy bed last weekend -- 15 inches! So up in the way northwest corner of CT no sightings for me AT ALL. I have had to shovel every weekend for the last month. But maybe not tomorrow!
lucia