We have two kinds of crabapple trees on the property. My favorites are on the far side of the house. They’re the same kind as the crabapple that was cut down a few years ago by an overzealous county employee. I still miss that tree, but I am heartened that I discovered two more like it.

I noticed it was blooming because we decided to mow the main part of the front lawn on Saturday. The grass was quite tall and we knew it was going to rain all day on Sunday.

While we were finishing up on the far side of the house, I saw the pink blooms of the crabapple. There’s a larger tree just beyond it but there were no visible buds yet. I’ll check it out today.

All this green, and after three days of temps in the high 80s, so many perennials have shot out of the ground. And what do we have tonight? A low of 27 degrees and frost. I feel a scream coming on. Since it’s impossible to cover our garden beds, I just have to hope that my well-established perennials can handle it. They are decades old and fairly hardy, so my fingers are crossed.

But it’s worrisome.

I still haven’t raked those beds, so I hope the leaves provide some protection. It went down to about 33 degrees last night. After tonight, we should get back to normal. I plan to buy some more porch plants tomorrow and start potting them.

This spring, just like the winter, has been crazy.

Don has to go to the doctor this morning for a shot in his eye. Thankfully, he only has to do this about every 3 months.

Stay safe.

Happy Monday.

Tiny green leaves popped out overnight. This is the big maple by the house. I quickly scanned the woods and the maples on either side of the house and yes, they’re doing the same thing. Whoo hoo!

I worked outside for quite a chunk of time yesterday, pruning hydrangeas as well as the spirea, trying to get that area under control because it’s way too overgrown. I had to keep crouching down to crawl under the branches. I don’t know if I made a real difference there, but I hope I did. I also pruned a bit of old rose bush growth, started to pull out the old coneflowers that I left up through the winter for the birds. Still no raking out of the rest of the beds, not until Sunday and Monday’s below freezing temperatures are past.

We also brought out the cushions for the porch furniture. I’m doing what I can while I wait for the GO! signal for the rest of the gardens.

But my allergies have flared up with all the pollen out there, so I’ll probably take it easy today.

Hostas emerging overnight.

Amazing what three unseasonably warm days can bring.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Stay safe.

Happy Saturday.

We’ve just had three very, very hot days and, today, the heat wave broke. We have no A/C installed this early in the spring, so we were feeling pretty miserable. And frankly, it’s too early to install the A/C, especially when the temps will be much lower over the next couple of weeks. Anyway, we had a box fan positioned in the bedroom window and it ran on high all night long and we were okay. And in true crazy spring fashion, Sunday and Monday nights will bring below freezing temperatures. Go figure.

As a result of all of this, I’m holding off on clearing the rest of the garden beds, and I’m definitely holding off on buying more porch plants. That will resume on Tuesday.

The grass is suddenly very green, the leaf buds have appeared on the maples and the ash and the hickory. These three days of heat have resulted in everything beginning to pop.

By the way, we have an ash tree down near the street that popped up many years ago (during our time here.) Most of the ash trees in this area were lost to the emerald ash borer. The gentleman who has pruned and removed some of our trees specializes in maintaining the health of at-risk trees and he comes once a year to treat the ash. He has some sort of special liquid medicine that he pours into the base of the tree. He’s been treating the ash for about 5 years and we are thrilled at how well it’s doing. we just received his annual notice, so he’ll be stopping by sometime in the next month.

I predict that we’ll find ourselves mowing the lawn for the first time sometime next week. The grass is really getting tall. We always wait a bit to mow for the first time because that’s what you should do in early spring.

Okay, my friends. I’m going to prune a bit more on both of our hydrangeas today.

Stay safe.

Happy Friday.