Spring!

Isn't Spring the best?  Seeing all of those perennials and flowering bulbs making an appearance in the dirt gives me a little thrill.  Its more reassurance to me that things follow an orderly progression; gives me a little hope.  This past weekend, my kids and I got to go outside and work a little in the backyard.  We have this graduation open house in June that we need to prepare for so its extra incentive to get the yard beautiful, (not to mention that I"m in a fierce turf war with the neighbor!)   We got about 15 bags of leaves and sticks raked up with a little more to go.  And in my opinion, Spring yard cleanup is so much more enjoyable than Fall yard cleanup. 

Yesterday I worked on the border next to the garage which I completely neglected last year.  It has Hydrangea bushes, two Clematis vines and a Honeysuckle vine.  That Honeysuckle came from a shoot I brought from my old house (the one I grew up in), and it is quite vigorous.  (You can read that as it spreads like Wildfire!) Anyway, the vine was growing on a trellis and was so abundant that it bent the trellis to the ground.  I spent an hour last night cutting the vine right back to the ground, and unwinding it from the trellis.  The Hydrangeas were so huge last year and had just a few blooms so I decided to cut those way back too.   

These were taken with my new cell phone so they're not the best quality, but you can see some improvement.  I wish I had taken the picture before I cut back the Honeysuckle.  My son Dylan is just happy that he won't get smacked in the head by it anymore when he mows the lawn. 

Speaking of Dylan, he's become quite a good landscaper.  He's also making mental lists of what needs to be done before this open house:  new bark in the border,  thatching and aerating the lawn, overseeding, power washing the deck, cleaning out the garage, etc.  Such a good kid!