Emma and I did a bit more clean-up yesterday. I was surprised to see the hostas in the northwest corner already poking significantly up. The daylilies and iris are also really greening and growing. The yellow crocus are pretty much done, but the purple are beautiful right now. The squill are really filling in now too.

Today I got the rest of the iris out of the east bed, and with Emma's help I added some compost and a new layer of mulch. I'll have a couple of empty spots there --maybe I can pick up something like coral bells for those at the nursery. I also got the pasture bed cleaned up and Rob and Emma cleaned and filled the birdbaths.

After the squill is finished blooming, I'd like to dig up some from the southeast corner and get them moved to the woods, in preparation for filling that corner in with dirt and making a real garden out of it. It appears that Rob's application of Round-up late last fall has taken out the iris and hostas, so we can just fill it in.

I still need to clean up the strawberry/brown-eyed-susan bed.

It was a beautiful afternoon.

We did a bit more cleaning in the garden today --yesterday snow, and today it's 50 and dry enough to work out there :) The pink glory of the snow is up near the swing bench, but the bunnies got to it before I found it and sprayed it, so most of the buds have been eaten. Such a bummer. Emma helped me add some mulch to spots near the birch trees, and we put out the chimes and garden ladies.

Snow on the first day of spring!

Typical March --it just loves to get in those sneak attacks. However, I'm sure the blooming crocus and snowdrops will be just fine, and nothing else is really up enough to be harmed. It's accumulated a little bit on the grass, but it's already melting. Tomorrow we're supposed to go back up to the 40's, so it won't be sticking around. Maybe it will be our last snow of the season? We can hope.

I did a tiny bit of garden clean-up today. It wasn't terribly warm, but the crocus needed some of last year's stuff cleaned away so we can see them. The bleeding heart has little tiny tips up, hopefully it will take it slow. It's not even April yet. The daffodils are coming up in the paddock, which surprises me -it seems early. The snowdrops in the woods are blooming, and the squill are beginning to show their blue faces as well.

Well, I ordered the tomatoes from WFF --six altogether, including three of the Amish paste and a Sungold. I also ordered the liatris and some coral bells (heuchera) for the northeast bed that we finished building last year. I got those from Bluestone Perennials.

We had rain this past weekend, and it looks like more rain is moving in. It's in the lower 40's, so the remaining snow cover continues to shrink. Over the weekend we found that in addition to our snowdrops, we also have crocus at the northwest corner that are about an inch up --they were revealed as the ice melted off of them, so they must've been growing under the snow. Some of the alliums are also growing.

First flowers of 2010

Yesterday I checked out the East bed, and found the snowdrops Emma and I planted last fall, blooming! That bed is always warm, and I guess I've finally found an area where the critters didn't find the bulbs.

Most things are still pretty snow-covered, although we do see more bare ground each day. This weekend we're supposed to be in the 40's, and I'm hoping we can get rid of a lot more of this old snow.