It's been gray and cold and damp for way too long, and it's put a serious damper on signs of life everywhere in the garden. You can almost feel the tension while they plants restrain themselves, refusing to get exuberant until the weather truly commits to Spring.
Lo and behold, today it seemed that we finally had that commitment. The sun came out at about 8:30 this morning, the mercury zoomed up to 81, and I swear you could literally hear the plants issue a collective sigh of release as they sprang into action. If the garden were a cartoon, there would probably be little thought balloons over most plants, containing sound effect words like "sproing, bloop, pop, splurt, and whoosh" among others. Here's some of the activity that would be narrated...
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| Ferns started unfurling |
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| The Weeping Cherry Tree looks anything but sad |
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| Solomon Seal continues its upwards march |
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Hyacinths are a couple of days ahead of
almost-blooming tulips |
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| Dwarf rhododendron are about to explode in purple |
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| The peas sprouted |
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| Forsythia put on their sunny display |
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Daffodils FINALLY open -- yes, they're very late,
but we'll have them after everyone else's are spent! |
We were inspired by this enthusiastic growth spurt and decided to seize the sun-drenched opportunity to get the oakleaf hydrangea in the ground. That meant... yep, more holes. And yep, more stones.
We remove so much solid matter each time we tap virgin territory on the hill, that we often don't have enough soil to refill the hole around the plant. So I took it upon myself to volunteer to make the run to the nursery to get the 6 bags of compost we'd need to complete the hydrangeas' new homes. A difficult dirty assignment, critically important, but someone had to do it. The fact that it also meant that I was leaving the hole-digging and rock-heaving to Mr. Mulch had nothing to do with it.
I got back in the nick of time -- that time being the exact moment the last hole was completed. Without further ceremony, we ushered the new plants into their beds, watered them in, and beat a hasty retreat as the skies darkened and it got ready to rain again.
So much for Spring sunshine.
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| Hydrangea ready to be tucked in |
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Not much to look at now, but we'll check back in
6 weeks -- should be much impressive by then |
We remove so much solid matter each time we tap virgin territory on the hill, that we often don't have enough soil to refill the hole around the plant. So I took it upon myself to volunteer to make the run to the nursery to get the 6 bags of compost we'd need to complete the hydrangeas' new homes. A difficult dirty assignment, critically important, but someone had to do it. The fact that it also meant that I was leaving the hole-digging and rock-heaving to Mr. Mulch had nothing to do with it. 
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