Early Signs

 The theme for the week in the Urban Sketchers Flickr group is "early signs of spring". Puget Sound area has had such a cold late winter, pre-spring, that not much is showing around my area.

The weather today definitely felt like spring. I checked and found Soos Creek Botanical Garden is open again for the season so that was my afternoon destination. I did find some early signs of spring there. 

This was the only planting of daffodils blooming in the close-in garden.  

Then I found an "early Rhododendron" and used the bell to frame a portion of it.  

This is a little clump of hellebores.  I don't consider them an early sign of Spring.  They are nicknamed the "Christmas Rose" or the "Lenten Rose".  Mine have have blooming since January!  There were dozens of clumps of them in the garden.