Kid in a candy shop

At this time of year, spring just can't gather pace quickly enough for me.  Although we had an early start to the spring and had unprecedented and consistently warm weather in March, things are back to normal now in April, and so I'm still patiently (or truth be told, impatiently) awaiting my first daffodils to bloom.  The sense of unfulfilled anticipation is only heightened when all over the blogosphere, people are reporting that their tulips are out, or that they've had their first rose of the season.  And indeed, because my garden sits about 100 yards from the chilly waters of Lake Ontario, it's in a cooler spot than most of Toronto, and I have to suffer the fact that others in this municipality are already enjoying the bounty of spring, whilst I must patiently wait!  As a result, trips to the garden centre at this time of year are particularly dangerous, given all the temptingly advanced items for the picking....which seem to call out "buy me" at every turn.  Last weekend, I paid a trip to Humber Nurseries, just to do a bit of perusing......here are some of the temptations I managed to avoid:

This gorgeous tree peony had a delicious scent 

This looks like it's straight from a japanese silk painting

perhaps I could have had a second career as a hand model, but now (as my dermatologist told me recently), the barnacles of old age are accruing and I think I've missed my window of opportunity

This one was about the size of my head (keep any comments to yourself thanks)

The petals on this one looked like scarlet silk taffeta

Some of these Heucheras were quite nice, others were very much on the gaudy side!

love these little dianthus - I have some pink ones in my garden and the scent is fantastic.

This cheeky chap, and his mate, have been frequent visitors to my garden this year....not quite sure where the nest is, but it must be close by given the amount of activity in my garden.   The photo was snapped on my phone through the sunroom windows and doesn't quite capture the vibrancy of his colours - he's not called a cardinal for nothing.