Blackfly, the Little Blackfly...

The surviving flowers are doing their best to grown and bloom in our warm weather these past few days.
Some "Blue Diamond" double late tulips which have reached the end of their term in my garden, having miniaturized in their third blooming season:

I spent nearly all of yesterday sweating and grunting as I pried the dead shrubs and perennials out of the ground. Among the dead were the Alchemilla (lady's mantle), Penstemon ovatus, the daylilies, blue oat grass and blue fescue, Aruncus dioicus (goat's beard), lupines, spirea shrubs, Liatris spicata, Chelone (turtlehead), Pulmonaria, Brunnera, Heuchera (coral bells), Dianthus deltoides (pinks), Stachys byzantina (lamb's ears), possibly the Echinacea, and probably some others I have forgotten. As a further insult, the blackflies chewed away at my left ear as I toiled and now I have a painful and puffy red ear to remind me of why I want to move to southern BC. In, the back of my mind was the national film board video about the pesky blackfly (albeit, in northern Ontario). I think any 20+ year old Canadian is familiar with this oh-so-relevant tune from the NFB.

Here is a plant that was undeterred by winter, Saxifraga arendsii "Purple Robe":

I only noticed after I took the picture that there are some horsetail weeds growing in the foreground. Oops.
Also doing well is the Erigeron compositus, which I started from seed two years ago:

I'll bet this plant is called a weed in someone else's garden, but I find it cute and pretty and am presently enjoying it in mine.