I thought that spring was sprung...

Apparently, I was wrong. With this recent burst of cold weather, it seems that spring is on hold for now. All the tulips, daffodils and other spring flowers that were making their way up and out have seemed to stop dead in their tracks. It's cold outside! All the same, I am thrilled to see so many of the things I planted, and replanted, coming to life again. My little Lilac next to the front walk seems quite happy, and has tons of new green growth.


I was also very happy to see the Coral Bells and Bleeding Hearts along the front walk are also growing back, no thanks to the deer that mowed them down so prematurely. No sign of the Hostas that suffered the same fate, but I'm holding out hope.


The stars of the yard, my precious Andromeda, have survived the winter fabulously. I did catch a young deer trying to munch on one of them last week, so I let out our vicious attack dog, Maybe. She has become quite the little guardian of the yard. She used to ignore the deer, but with just a little coaching she now sees them as intruders. She barks at them with all her might, and circles the perimeter of the yard until we call her off. My plants just got a little safer. I want to plant two more Andromeda, right along with the others, to help form the border across the back of the yard. The three in place now are growing faster than I expected, and I think we'll get some nice separation from them.

I purchased (but have not planted yet due to the constant rain), three bright red Azalea on clearance at Home Depot. They must have been from last year, and were barely hanging on, but for $3 each, it was worth a shot. Since they've been outside, soaking up all this rain, they've started to come alive. I wasn't planning on having red in the mix, but I think I'll plant them in the back for a nice hint of color.

We've had a strange occurrence in the front yard. A transplant of some sort. We watched this plant grow out in the middle of the pachysandra, and originally thought it was some mammoth weed. As it took shape I realized it was a flower after all. An Easter Lily perhaps?


On our one day outside, we managed to get a good clean up in. At the end of the day we decided to rip out the picket fence behind the garage. It was terrible, and we knew it was going to go eventually.





Eventually this will all be large patio pavers, wrapping from the deck around to meet up with the path on the side of the garage. I can't wait to get this area cleaned up, but for now, this is a big improvement. It is much more open back there, and you can really appreciate the amount of potential usable space. You can see my rock wall is almost complete. I'd like to finish it up with one more row of stones on top and a border of of plants along the top. I am really proud of that little wall. I think it looks great, and I can't wait to turn the rest of the piles of rocks into nice features for the yard.

And to close, we were lucky to get a ton of work done that day, thanks to this sweet, little man staying put on the deck all day. He was happy to curl up in the sun on my sweatshirt.