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.

It was very sunny when I took this photo and the temp was in the low 80s. Too hot for this time of year. I’m afraid we have to deal with this for 3 days. On Thursday, it’s going to reach 88 degrees.

Both of us have been working outside but we’re sore, so we must try to be sane about the whole thing. I potted the pansies and some calibrachoa that I got at our nursery, along with a big bag of potting soil, some new gardening gloves, and some morning glory seeds. Still have to get – most likely next week – some zinnia seeds, the impatiens that are a big part of the porch, some purple lobelia, geraniums, and at some point some plants for one pot in the secret garden. I’m only doing one this year to save money. And one of my standard hanging plants. The other hanging plants will come from the flat of impatiens. I’m pretty budget conscious about all of it. But as Don said, the look of the flowers on the porch is a big deal to us. We spend a lot of time out there and we draw comfort from them.

I potted these in the wrong pots! I have to change them out tomorrow afternoon. The pots I normally use are larger.

I’ll tend to that in the afternoon after I finish my coaching session at 11:00 am.

I’m actually writing this on Tuesday afternoon and I’ll schedule the post for 8 am on Wednesday. I have too much to do before I have to coach to fit in writing a post, as well.

Stay safe.

Happy Wednesday.