April in the Garden

Today was warm, sunny with temps around 60 degrees. We unwrapped the tree trunks of their plastic protection... wish we would have had enough to protect the one lilac that the deer rubbed. But there is another shoot coming up from the ground to take the place of the rubbed branch.

I continues to do the obligatory dandelion digging... buckets of them. I also took to digging out some of the liriope that is spreading past where i want it. Liriope has quite the root structure and it took a lot of digging and prodding to get them out of the ground.

Currently in bloom:

• Dandelion (many varieties)
• Scilla
• Squill
• Wood Hyacinth
• Grape Hyacinth
• Crocus
• Violas
  

March Rains

We received some much needed rain yesterday and more today. Over an inch of rain total... a slow drizzle for days... the garden is very happy.
Yesterday I dug out a couple buckets full of weeds (mostly dandelion)... and today i noticed so many more that seemingly sprung up overnight!
Currently in bloom are the miniature daffodils, and scilla. The trout lilies and grape hyacinth are almost in bloom.
I noticed new growth on the lupine, columbine, tulips, daffodils, honeysuckle, clematis, and violas.

Oh, I'm sore...

Yesterday was a beautiful day. I would have stayed home but had an afternoon meeting that i needed to attend. So I rushed home and jumped in to my gardening clothes. I spent the next 2+ hours in the garden. Cleaning out debris, raking, and clipping a big shrub that needed to be trimmed before bird nesting season. That is what did my arms in. I prefer to use non-electric hedge clippers. I hate the noise and lack of control i have with electric ones. So I clipped and clipped and my arms were screaming at me when i was done. But boy, sis it feel good to be out in the garden! So many plants starting to grow. I noticed the lupine, honeysuckle, columbine, all showing new growth.

Ides of March garden cleanup

Bright yellow Winter Aconite with its delightful and funny green collar. Groups of these diminutive blossoms are throughout the garden.
Today we continued with general yard clean-up... a whole lot of raking of pine cones and needles. Another fire is already in order.
I also trimmed the butterfly bushes and finished cutting back the grasses... especially the liriope. We discussed where we want to move the rose... which also means moving a daylily. I'll probably split the daylily in two.

The almost spring clean-up continues...

Today we burned the garden debris pile that had been building since last fall... and gathered branches that had fallen from our pine trees. It's a small price to pay for these beautiful big old pines that line the edge of the property.

The winter aconite is in full bloom and the small daffodils and crocus are starting to bloom... more snowdrops have sprung up too.

70 degree March day!

... which translates in to a lot of gardening clean-up. Clipping more grasses and raking leaves & pinecones... and trimming this and that. A very busy day I did some repellent spraying and adding a cage around the flowering almond seedling that had been chewed upon (looked like rabbit activity).

Today I noticed a winter aconite flower bud... and buds on one of the lilac bushes. A lot of daffodils, crocus and tulip greens are coming up.

I've noticed that a lot of our trees have gone through a growth spurt... especially the birch and crab apple. I need to find places to plant the two crab apple in pots. The seedlings that Sandy gave me last year from the arbor society.

I also noticed a mantis egg-sac on the honeysuckle!

First Flower 2009

Snowdrop in the sunshine! Two weeks ahead of 2008.