It’s another wonderful Spring day. A commenter yesterday was jealous of the weather here. 😉 Surely that is a good thing! For now. Another day I’m sure it would be quite not that. Wait until a month or two has passed and temperatures will be hotter than hot. :veryshocked:
Spring growth is occuring in more places now. Weeds are springing up mightily and faster than that. Just two days ago there wasn’t as much “green” out there, what we call our yards, that is.
I did a bit of work, not much, just a bit, in my herb garden. That’s a great big task to hack at later. The weeds are nasty around the edges, I must move them back and get some sort of brick border installed. I bought a Sage plant and installed that today. I moved some Thyme around too, there are woody dead looking parts, and that’s what I moved. To see if it would come to life over there, fill out another corner, or not. If not, no big deal, it’s in the back, not as primary in view as where it was previously.
On the opposite end of that square of herbaceous-supposed-growing-grounds are two areas with “for show only” value. They are perennials and haven’t started to grow back up to the sun as of yet. No hurry, I say. The weeds are thick throughout that area, and I don’t want to battle them out with tender shoots coming up. Purple Cone Flower is one type, the other I keep forgetting, a Giant “A-something-0r-other”, butterflies love the pink flowers on it. It gets fairly large.
The Yoshino Cherry Trees are starting burst out into flowery beauty. A few of the buds have opened today, first day of Yoshino opened buds. 🙂 All the buds, or most of them, are very pink and getting fuller and fuller and I hope to get a good photo when they all burst out into glorious song!
The area around the October Glory Maple in the front yard is needing work. I have to get more flowery plants out there sometime. The grassy weeds are encroaching where I don’t want them, but can’t get them out of there at all. It’s the area that we are naturalizing with … um, you know, star, or burst, or fire, oooh, the name escapes, little perennial bulbs that grow each season and get bigger and bigger. They grow tall green spikes and unfurl their little blooms top down, firey crimson beauties. Onions and grasses are there when the main livers go dormant. That’s late fall through early Spring. Every Spring new little plants spring up. These plants are super producers and naturalize easily. Right now that’s what is happening. Under all the weeds, little cuties are getting green and popping up to become bulbs eventually, if they get that far. The ones that are older are bulbs and will begin to put up spikes again fairly soon.
The pussy willow bush is there too. It’s not really going further, just waiting for something … or … ?
We have so much work to do outside, and not quite enough rescources to fill in what we’d like to. There is renovation work too that we’d like to do, but don’t know if this is the year we’ll be able to, rip out the ocncrete sidewalk and put down a new paver one from a different point and path to the door. That is in accordance to our landscaping plan we had drawn up some years ago. It would give more useful landscaping space outside of the house where the current dining room is. Right now it’s just a 2 foot wide space of dirt and weeds and wildflowers, then concrete sidewalk. I don’t like the sidewalk there. People show up right in front of the door so fast with no warning that way. Talk about shocking an introvert :veryshocked: It’s an efficient walk, to a degree, but not ergonomic nor asthetic. It could be rip out and forgetten easily. A graceful curve from further up the driveway would be nicer, and with a branch up towards the road to the mailbox. Foot traffic then would come down through the property, not down the side and out of view of the occupants of the house as is now.
Plants and dirt and mulch and other things cost so much, so we’ve had to do what we can when we could in the past, and are still doing that. Some years ago we did have some extra $ and we had to decide what to do. We had to put trees in, and had to do that first, so that they could grow and anchor into the land and be the corner posts of all the landscaping. The support framework, whathaveyou. That kind of thing was important to us as we had no trees except for the Locust on the side-line of our property and the neighbors, by the garage. It was the one lone tree.
That one lone tree was once small, but is very big now. It has produce many offspring too. Under our deck is one growing since last year. It’s small, and needs to be moved. Just a foot high, still dormant right now. I think I’ve written about the tree that needs moved that’s in front of the gate … it’s the first big offspring of that big lone Locust tree. It’s really large now, and must be moved this Spring.
I’ve spied new offspring this week too. Little division leafsets coming up. They are peculiar and very noticeable. Thick and definitely not a weed. I’ve grown some of them before, but not to adult hood. I wasn’t a good waterer and they died while still in small containers. I did the same to some baby maple trees. I just don’t have the right area set up to propogate little trees to bigger-hood to then plant in permanent place. But I’ve had fun working with them and seeing what’s what. I will have better success if I can get just a little bit of other stuff done this year.
So I did take those tiny new sprouted Locust seed growths and put two of them in better spots of the back yard, and put a big stick as a marker by them so they won’t get trodden or mowed over.
Two others I have in a little pot, I can’t leave them there, I will kill them if I do :shocked: It’s just a holding tank, for lack of other termage. Once they start getting bigger, putting out roots … they’ll be hungry and thirsty and need to be in the Good Earth.
I’m thinking of veggies now too. I need to get some tomatoes out, and get some seed and grow some tomatoes to put out myself later in the season, for the second half. So I need plants to set out first. I haven’t had good fortune with the ones I had last year. I’m not sure exactly where I’ll get the plants, or where I’ll put them. I’m itching for some good home grown fresh tomatoes though, with sea salt and mayo. Mmm, Mmmm, Mmmmmmmm!
Besides all that, it’s Spring and a happy time of the year, or should be. But it’s a sad time for me. This is the week that is the one year anniversary of miscarrying our 4th baby, and I just can’t get rid of the images of it all. It has nearly split me into two people. One is depressed and one is not. But we are one, not one is truly depressed, only that one is bright and happy, the other is dark and saddened, more sensitive and ouchy, just touched to the very quick of my soul and changed forever. I’m sensitive to this and it’s like a beacon … marking out a place and strobing light hit’s my eyes every so often. It’s empty arms right now when they would have been full, and seeing others that are alive, it just reminds me of the deep pain I carry and am not supposed to unmask for anyone but God. But here it is, that’s the truth and it’s the one year anniversary this week. I can’t help but write about it and put it into the dear Springtime bloomings things.
I’m moreso reminded of it as well because of the place where we get our hen feed from had a fire and one of their barns burned down. Many animals that we looked at and petted just a few short weeks ago lost their lives, and among them a black Ewe who was pregnant when we saw her, and gave birth to twin not long after that, they died in that fire. It haunts me, as do the deaths of this past year and a half that so heavily marked the time for me. Animals and people. My own baby being one of them. So much pain and sorrow. When God wipes the tears from our eyes, we will rejoice, and until then, the tears will fall. When time is no more, sorrow will be no more.
Spring is the season of coming to life. So it’s a happy/sad time for those who have seen death in this time. I’m encouraged by seeing the Yoshino Cherry trees getting ready to bloom. They sang a dirge for me last year, and now break into song again this year. Time marches on.