Give me a Yard

It's a gorgeous day here in the Pacific Northwest. We're expecting temperatures into the 70's. Yes, Gail, that would be above zero. So sorry you're still in the cold. This is usually a very wet time of the year for us, and temperatures in the 70's the first week of March is highly unusual. It seemed like a good day to get out and do some work in the yard, cleaning up some of the winterkill.

The first thing I noticed is this crazy tulip. The second bud is opening now.

Each year, I start with my culinary herb garden. What a mess:

The culinary herb garden curves down a hill, and so the only way to fit it into a frame is to hold the camera at a funny angle. Just tilt your head. After a couple of hours of ripping and snorting, I had it looking much better.

I know what you're thinking: Did she actually do anything? Yes. I did. And here's the pile of dead stuff to prove it. It's about three feet in diameter.

Mike will come along and pick this up in the tractor bucket. I make the messes. He cleans them up. It's a recipe for a long and happy marriage. 

There isn't much growing in the herb garden yet. It seems I lost my sad little thyme plant this year, probably in the ice storm back in November. It had struggled for a long time, and so that was no surprise. More surprising is that I think I lost one of my three French lavender plants. I'll replace both of those with some starts. A few things were showing some green: the sorrel and the marjoram both show promise. The most obvious thing growing in those little green tufts are the chives. Oh yes. We'll have plenty of chives this year. Also, I've struggled to get a rosemary plant to survive the winter. The one there in the top half of the picture is looking great!

And how:

Also, I pulled up the dead catnip. That has come back every year for the past couple of years. I'm hoping it'll come back again, but I don't see any signs of it yet.

After that, I decided to take a walk around to see what else is growing. Welcome to my spring garden! Follow me, please.

One of the cherry trees has buds on it now. The other gets more shade, and I didn't notice any buds on it yet.

The daylilies are off to a good start.

My favorite star jasmine is loaded with flowers now...mainly on the part of the plant way over my head. Again, I think it gets more sun up there.

Here are a few of the blossoms down lower where I can see them. They're not quite open yet. I'm hoping they'll open in the next couple of days.

The petals are very delicate and easily bruised by the rain. We aren't expecting any rain before Thursday, and so I'm hopeful they'll give us a good show before the rain damages them.

This little dwarf spruce was a Christmas tree one year. Occasionally, we buy one of those pre-decorated trees when we're feeling unbelievably lazy at Christmas. They come pre-decorated and lit. All you do is set them on a table and plug them in. My kinda Christmas decorating. Anyway...this one was only about knee high on me when we planted it in the ground.

There where my hand is shows you how far over my head it is now. I'm 5'5", and so it's grown a whole lot. There are a few more of these growing around the yard, but this is the largest.

There are daffodils blooming all over now.

And I think the flowering plums are having their best year ever.

Many years ago, we tried planting these to line the driveway. They kept dying, and we replaced them for a while until it became clear that was a losing proposition. We stopped replacing them and we have about half left from the original 14 we planted. They're looking pretty good. That little short one in the left-hand corner is what's left of one Mike ran over with the tractor. Oops.

The wisteria is loaded with buds now, but no leaves, and not very close to opening. That one usually puts on a show about six weeks from now, but everything is very early this year.

I brought out the sundial. We always put it away during the winter because a heavy snow will break off the gnomon (that's the wand). It already sprang ahead.

If you're having trouble reading that it says: "The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here."

So that's about all the yard work I'm up for today. It's going to be nice again tomorrow. If I haven't totally messed up my back and knees with today's work, I'm going to get out and deadhead the hydrangeas tomorrow.

Also this morning, I stitched the next block for The Vintage Kitchen wallhanging.

Next up, I'm going to clean up my sewing room and make some blocks. I think it's going to be a great weekend here at the Three Cats Ranch. I hope your weekend is off to a good start too.