Tags

,

Spring has arrived and gifted us in northeastern Pennsylvania with sunshine and warmth! There’s been nary a cloud in the sky all day, and the temperature flirted with sixty degrees. It was a fine day to find pansies for sale at my local Agway!

I came home with a full flat! Tomorrow I’ll plant them in containers and put them on my porches and vegetable garden railing.
The greenhouse smelled divine!

Back at home, I took a walk around my yard. Here’s what I saw.

There are still four to six inches of snow on this section of the yard. At an elevation of 1,414 feet, winter’s remnants stick around for a long time!
It’ll be a while before I can work in the rock garden. Today’s fine weather did bring to mind some the new plants I put in here late last summer–lady’s mantle, native monarda, and lupine, to name a few. I can’t wait to see them!

The Terrace Garden faces east and enjoys full sun from sunrise until early afternoon. There are just a few snowy vestiges left in there.

My boxwoods are in sad shape. I’ve got some work ahead to try to rehab them!
Lots of bulbs have poked their shoots through the ground.

Chatting with a friend yesterday, I likened our backyard to a black and white cookie: half vanilla, half chocolate.

Progress is progress, no matter how slow?

Up along the back edge of the yard, at the top of the hill, the line of early daffodils refuses to be defeated by the late snow! I usually see these King Alfred types bloom the last week of March or the first week in April.

Brave little daffs!

The vegetable garden is nearly snow-free. Later this week, I will rake some of those leaves away to see whether the 100 or so tulips in there are up yet. And perhaps I’ll trim the clematis, though I better look up what class it is first to make sure this is the right time of year for it. I never do remember from year to year! Ooh, maybe I’ll uncover some hardy herbs too. Fresh thyme smells so good!

See those planter boxes lying in there? Tomorrow I will fill them with pansies and put them on the railing.

The trees are getting buds. The pussy willow opened early this year, but the chilly weather we were struck with when March arrived has slowed it down, and the catkins are lasting a while.

What a joy to see a blue sky!
The deer this year have been rubbing on the pussy willow’s trunk, something I’ve not seen in previous years. Not happy about that!
Not a willow, but an aspen. This tree adorns itself in the most perfect spring-green every May, and then glows in luminous yellow in October.
Kousa dogwood buds. It’s almost time to decorate this tree with brightly colored plastic Easter eggs. I thought I would stop doing it when my children were grown, but a neighbor once told me how much she enjoys seeing it every year, so I continue.

I had company on my stroll today, seen here blissfully rolling around in the old dry grass!

Gratuitous cat picture. Not sorry.

I finally saw a robin in my own yard today. I’ve seen them down in town for a couple weeks, but again, spring and its accouterments take a little longer to arrive up here.

Yeah, it’s a pretty crappy picture–didn’t have a zoom lens on the camera, and I figured it would fly away if I got too much closer! But surely you can see its red breast and recognize it as a robin without stretching your imagination too far!

Finally, I was very happy to see some rhubarb noses above the ground!

A mere two months until pie!

Our afternoon walkabout exhausted the cat, who spent the rest of the afternoon dozing in a sunny spot on the back deck. He and I agree that we could not have asked for a nicer first full day of spring!

Soaking in the springtime warmth!

Advertisement