The view out my window is a still life of grays and browns, but with a few hopeful brush strokes of green and yellow. In spite of Wonderful Husband’s assiduous fertilization regime, the grass isn’t getting the message. There a few places where the hard clay soil refuses to grow much of anything (even weeds). But, every year, he stubbornly tries to persuade fescue to grow “where no grass has grown before”. Bless his heart!

The daffodils are doing very well without any attention whatsoever. They’re usually the first harbinger of spring in our yard, but last fall I planted two cultivars of dwarf Iris, “Joyce” (see photo) and “Katharine Hodgkin”. Tiny, delicate little flowers, but they were blooming before the daffodils were even thinking about it. I really had no idea that they would bloom this early!

You know how sometimes you buy a plant “just because”? That’s why I bought these iris; first, I really love iris, and (most importantly) one of them was named “Joyce”. Joyce was my mother’s name, is my middle name and my daughter’s middle name. So, I had to buy it…you understand!

Weather

The weather’s been really malicious, with sunny days and blue skies during the week when I’m stuck in a windowless office; raining and gray on the weekends when I’m home and itching to go outside. It’s making all of us gardening folk depressed.  One gardening friend is even counting down the days until our last frost date (April 15 in Zone 6b).

There was one glorious weekend we were able to be outside in shorts and t-shirts (Mother Nature is such a tease!) Wonderful Husband fertilized the grass until he was worn out and I did a bunch of clean up. I picked up the fallen branches and did some light pruning on the Japanese maple and the two Asian pears we’d planted last spring.

I’d left my herbaceous perennials pretty much alone last fall, so they could provide seeds and cover for birds and wildlife during the winter. In very early spring, on those rare nice days, it feels like strong medicine to get out and clean up the dead stalks and look for what’s beginning to green up.

Darwin Tulips

I was pleasantly surprised when I spotted the Darwin tulips that I had planted last fall. Years before, I’d planted about 50 bulbs and not even one came up. I blamed the voles, because it didn’t look as if the squirrels had dug any up. Feeling hopeless, I resolved to focus on alliums, daffodils and lilies, which didn’t seem to be as attractive to hungry critters.

Then, in the Breck’s sale catalog, they had orange Darwin tulips at a price even a tightwad like me couldn’t refuse. So, I ordered them and planted them and then promptly forgot where I planted them. To be honest, I didn’t expect they would survive the voles or squirrels, but they have! I’m looking forward to seeing those cheerful orange blooms soon.

By the way, Breck’s has a money back guarantee. I have contacted them to get refunds on plants that didn’t grow and they issued a refund to my credit card the very same day! It’s as risk free as a person could ask for!

Stay green, good friends, gardening weather will get here (just not soon enough)!