Saturday, April 15, 2017

Mid-April Blooms

This is about the extent of anything happening in the garden beds.


The Tete-a-tete Daffodils bloomed after an 80 degree day on Tuesday.
Even though we've had rain, we're not out of a drought.
And we've hit 80 one day each of the past two weeks.
Other than that, we're chilly and sunny today for an egg hunt.


I bought some pansies for color.


The chives were green.


It's definitely jacket and sweater weather for Lily and Violet--
and most of the other blooms.

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Ahhhh! Back to Gardening

It's not an April Fool!  The sun came out; the skies cleared up; and the soil was workable. Ahhhh!

I grabbed my garden gloves, pruners, a lopper, and an old fleece.  I wanted to pull out the Creeping Jenny which had invaded the garden last year so I also took the 3-tine cultivator.  Garden man came later with a tarp and a wheelbarrow--reluctantly.

I exercise regularly all winter so that first day in the garden is not too much of a strain.  I switched between pruning and cultivating to rest my back a bit.  It felt very good to be in the sun and in the soil.  The birds were singing.  The brook was roaring after two days of rain.  All is good.


Done for today!
Gloves are drying out.  Pruners also.
Bird bath is ready to level later.


Poppies are coming up again!
They tried earlier but faced snow and cold temperatures.


The tulips are hiding behind the daffodils
(from the front of the border).
Sometimes the deer and/or bunnies don't see them.
I hope this will be such a year.


I cut back the fountain grass (foreground)
and the butterfly bush ( behind grass).
The Buddleia was much too big last year.
I read in the UCONN Garden Center newsletter to cut it back to 6 inches now.
We'll see what happens...