Happy Easter

I hope that the Easter Bunny brings you lots of chocolate for your basket,

Lots of  Flowers for your garden

And much Peace for your heart.

Mellow Yellow in the Garden

What with the magnolia blooming and a few red tulips I was thinking our garden was beginning to look quite lively when my DB made the remark that we have lots of yellow in the garden now. Hmmmmm See there is another color other than yellow. These tulips are only about six inches high. They almost get lost in the bed. I hate to move them because I think they have reproduced here. This area is a difficult area to get anything to grow in.What with the daffodils and the forsythia blooming up a storm there is quite a bit of yellow.Some of the narcissus do throw a shot of orange into the mix.
I hope your weekend is bright despite what the weather might be throwing at you.

Spring Clean Up

The past couple of days have been typically beautiful spring days. My Dearly Beloved and I have been out in the garden raking the leaves and debris off of the flower beds. We have pulled lots of weeds. I had my first casualty of the gardening year. This tool broke way too soon. I hadn't even worn the tag off of it yet. I really hate breaking this tool. I didn't even know I liked this tool until I received it as a gift christmas before last. I used it all last year but it didn't make it through this season. If you like certain tools and use them often you know how I feel. I know that Carol would know how I felt if she broke one of her hoes.

Of course our Overseer was in the garden. It was her job to alert us to the meter reader and to keep all squirrels and cats at bay while we were out.

We had to take a little break in the action to watch as this Robin was busy building a nest in one of the shrubby trees out front. There is another Robin building a nest in the apple tree in the back garden.

The Saucer Magnolia is all abloom like I can't remember it ever blooming.

Dearly Beloved took the above two photos.

I tried to get an overall shot of the Magnolia. Somehow it just doesn't show up in photos as it does in person.

Behind the Magnolia you can see the forsythia blooming. I call this arrangement my "Folly". When I stuck these two forsythia into the ground I was just going to leave them there until I found somplace for them to take up a permanent residence. I had bought them as a table decoration for easter one year. Then I forgot about them. They sent out these L O N G branches so I decided to tie them up over the garage window. They made an interesting (to me) arch. I like pulling into the garage and seeing either the brilliant yellow blooming or the dark green of the leaves. Some years this arrangement is stuffed full of blooms. This year it has a bare spot or two. Most were caused by those galls I wrote about this winter. I will cut them out and hope that it improves the bush. Now if I could also get the House Sparrows not to build nests here it would fare better.

Brighter Note

On a brighter note this evening... The forsythia stems I brought in with the pussy willow are now open. It is wonderful that when the rain stopped the fosythia decided to burst into bloom. Not only that but the fuzzy

catkins have become actual flowers. Aren't they pretty?? It was difficult to get a decent picture of them. Most of the fuzzy wuzzies have fallen off the stems and a few of these blooms remain. I hope everyone is high and dry tonight. Our garden is s l o w l y emptying out. It will be some time before I can do anything outside.

Signs of Spring

I got out into the garden to look for other signs of spring. I must say that the few signs I am seeing are not exactly what I was hoping for. These hellebores are not looking so healthy. We have had such abnormal highs and then lows in temperatures I am afraid they just don't know what to do. These look pale and peaked. I don't know what to do for them. I hope they snap out of what ever is ailing them.There are buds coming on the old lilac. Actually this bush is not old but the bush that I got this start from is old. It is a white lilac that grows in the garden where I work. No one knows how old this lilac is but the neighbors have lived next door to it for 50 years and they said it was there when they moved in. The building that houses the shop I work in is over 150yrs old. I wonder if the lilac is original to the place. I guess we will never know. My little piece of the lilac is just 4 years old. It had its first blossom last year. It was wonderful. I can hardly wait until it get full of the scented white blossoms. Maybe I will have more this year. There are daffodils peeking out of the ground. Even they have a sickly pale green cast to their sprouts. I can sort of understand that because it hasn't been very sunny despite what the picture is indicating.

These are the beginnings of some hyacinths that are showing signs of awakening. Actually they look normal. This is a good sign. I mosied over to check out the forsythia. I wondered after several days of above normal temps if there might be a bloom or two that had been coaxed into the warm winter air. Not a single one. There are buds. The most interesting thing I see are some galls. They are in the uppermost reaches of this bush. I wonder what kind of bug has made them there?? This is where I usually have lots of house sparrow nests. This past summer I kept the House Sparrow nest torn out to try to force themto go nest at some other garden. They kept attacking the House Wrens and sticking their heads into the nest box trying to force out the wrens. I just couldn't tolerate them doing this. So the eviction began. They were persistent but I was more so. They finally gave up on this spot and built high in the apple tree. Not high enough though. I threw them out of there. Then they got the message and went into the side lot and found a tree I couldn't climb and built. They did leave the Wrens alone the rest of the summer. Anyway...does anyone have an idea of what type of insect might make these galls? I was guessing some type of wasp. What do you think?

Tonight the wind is howling so it is possible I will have snow pictures for you tomorrow. I would rather think about spring.