It's a beautiful slow spring here.  I am ridiculously excited by the mulching and even better, the edging, done by the worthy young landscapers-- 8 hours, 3 guys, but it looks great. The cinnamon buns seemed to go over well.  As my husband pointed out, now I can do the fun stuff and not be tensely eyeing a giant pile of mulch all season.

My bulbs are lovely, although some of them look like something I wouldn't order-- orangey, and I don't do orange.  Hmm.

This spring I bought so far: tiny catmints, some waterperry blue veronica, a Beauty of Moscow lilac, three Hicksi yew, three Yuki Cherry Blossom deutzia, and I just got my mail order geranium Rozanne and Sweet Drift, Alnwick, and Quietness roses.

The apple tree is blooming and the lilac is blooming well under it, making an idyllic combination for my dining room windows.  What I need is nicer furniture in there, but who wants to buy furniture when there are so many wonderful plants?

The Encore Autumn Twist azaleas still look like hell.  They've been kind of a bust in these cold winters.

Spring is so far advanced from my last set of pictures I'm going to wait and get new ones.

Happy spring!

It's WARM!!!

It's also RAINING.  But that's okay.  Somehow I miraculously managed to get out between showers and pig out at the nursery:

I then mucked off the porch-- old branches, Christmas lantern, fake tree knocked down by the wind, empty pots, etc. I washed out and filled the doorway containers with Green Mountain boxwood (which I hope to keep in there) and some sweet violets.

I also did some bed cleanup for the first time this year-- yes, April 3, but it has been so, so cold I didn't want to touch it.  I'm still waiting for things like hosta to start coming up.  Forsythia still haven't bloomed around here. My roses are pushing buds, and I plan to start pruning and I'll fertilize with my usual wide-scatter Osmocote when I get the dead leaves and fallen stalks out.

In HAPPY NEWS, I arranged for edging, mulching, and dead shrub removal, hopefully in the next week or so.  Around $1500 for the above with about 15 yards of mulch.  It's a business I've worked with before and the guy seems really pleasant and knowledgeable, so I'm hoping it will turn out well. It's a lot of clams but with my working full time, I just don't have the time or the oomf.

Here's one of my containers:

And here's the nemisia and violets I added on the left, which never matches the right for some reason-- the crocuses are much later, 3 feet away:

And the still sleeping, still not cleaned up side garden, with the crooked dogwood and the Otto Luykens laurel I plan to replace and baby like anything with burlap in the winter:

Pure potential, right?  

With me you get your earthy, grungy, realistic photo, complete with hoses and plastic pots and everything. I think "keeping it real" is valued these days and Gosh, I'm good at that.

PS I saw my first worm of spring today!