Pasque Flowers

It's late April and the Pasque Flowers are beginning to give us the treat of their early blooms.  We first 'discovered' these wonderful perennial plants several gardens ago when we lived in Minnesota.  We realize that most perennial Pasque Flowers that are sold in nursery's are the European varieties (pulsatilla vulgaris) where as the natives to the United States may be found as Pulsatilla patens  or Anemone patens .

For those who like wildflowers, I would like to point out that the first link takes you to a page on the US Forest Service website and the second to a site dedicated to Minnesota wildflowers.  I was able to view the first page when I started this post on Saturday and it was unavailable today.  I am hopeful this is a temporary situation because I have found so many of these websites put out by our government agencies to be of use over the years.

A couple of years ago, we grabbed a batch of pasqueflowers and put them out in one of our fields that had shown poor production for our annual crops.  We are reaping benefits this year with some very nice blooms on the Pasques. 

We managed to pick up some different colors.  You might even notice that the first photo shows three different colors.  I suspect we threw three different plants there (they were pretty small at the time).  We may split them later... or not.  They really don't seem to mind.

The other nice thing about Pasque Flowers?  They can handle a little snow and cold.  Even if that snow comes in May (which was when the picture above was taken).  Obviously, I am NOT talking about this May.  Please not this May....
 

Another thing we like about Pasque Flowers?  The flowers extend out to these 'fruits' or 'seedheads' and they look pretty nice too.  The plants form nice mounds that look pretty good for most of the year as well.

But, the best thing about them?  It's seeing the first bit of green pushing up out of the soil - daring us to hope once again.