If You Want Spring, You Gotta ATTRACT It

From my favorite comic strip character, Churchy La Femme (Pogo was before even my time, but I have reprints.)

I did a google image search for "underplanting Limelights" and saw a picture that reminded me of my own garden.  Then I realized it was my garden, linked from this blog.  The scary part is that it took a minute or so of careful study to determine that this was in fact my garden.  Yikes.

BIG NEWS:  As of early May, there will be earthmoving and the addition of large rocks and several bigger trees and shrubs to distract us from the Death Star, aka the gigantic nursing home which has finally landed in the acreage behind us.  It has taken me months and some pharmaceutical help to cope with the gradually rising tide of dirt cresting behind our house.  Spring is birdsong and also beeping and steamrollers and guys shouting.  Theoretically there will be a line of evergreen trees near the top of this 8 foot mound behind our fence.  Time will prove.  Meanwhile, I hired a landscape architect and there will be stuff getting moved and planted so that we will have at least the bones of a landscape back there.  Tabling my potager idea for the present.  Next house.

OTHER BIG NEWS:  I ordered 100 Vinca minor "Miss Jekyll" after much reading and agonizing and back and forthing.  Will it be invasive?  Is it not cool enough?  Will I be sorry?  I also got some Bowles variety for some clear reason which is eluding me now-- where did I mean to put that, exactly?

I put my wintered over wintergreen in the ground by the side steps, in the shade near the Bleeding Heart.

I bought three perennial geranium Karmina and put them in the southeast corner by the viburnum which are planted too damn close to the house.  I am all about groundcovers this year.  I am also about planning things rather them planting them haphazardly, forgetting where they are or that I ever had them when they promptly melt out.

I have 8 yards of leaf mulch arriving sometime this week.  Woof.

Hollies appear to have made it through the winter just fine.  I did spray them with Wilt Pruf.  Did some clean up and some timid pruning.  A lot of my soil became bare over the winter, which is Very Bad, I know.  Just waiting to blanket it with leaf mulch.

Late spring due to things being locked down by cold.  Looks like it's going to be creepy climate change warm this week.  As of now the cherry is barely in bud, the lilacs are showing just a little bit of budding, only crocus and tiny early daffs are starting to bloom for me though other, more protected locations around the neighborhood have daffs in full swing.

I'd like to do some dividing and replanting but it might make sense to wait until after this projected warm front.