The Garden Awakens

The fig tree is putting on new leaves!

One of the pipevines has returned!

As have some of the ground orchids! Still waiting on the Nun’s orchid to see if it will be revived.

We will be flush with strawberries soon!

The flame acanthus are greening up.

Tropical milkweed sprouts! The monarchs will have food!

The deer really enjoy gladiolus shoots! They chomp, it regrows, they chomp again.

I think it’s safe to say that spring is here. A string of 80-almost-90 degree days gave us a taste for what a few months down the line is going to be like. Having the weather that warm already was pleasant in the mornings but by afternoon it was edging towards uncomfortable. A few of my lunch hour gardening days had me teetering on the knowledge that it won’t be long before I’ll be back to needing to shower before returning to work after those garden sessions.

With Chris gone the last few weeks I haven’t gotten to finish mulching the flower beds but I should be able to get that done this weekend. The flower beds are weeded—well, as much as I can get without being too nitpicky. I’ll have to stay on top of Virginia creeper, pine, and elm seedlings that sow themselves in waves through the next two months. Right now the heavy seedling situation is with the Virginia creeper and I’m seeing a few pines here and there.

I’m thrilled with what has been showing its face, the plants that have returned from the roots after our hard freeze last month. I thought I’d lost the tropical milkweed but even the little sprouts that had started germinating back in December have returned! The one oddity so far has been our large clump of pink brugmansia. Maybe I need to dig through my photo archives to see when they started returning in previous years—well, last year they barely died back, I only clipped them down to around chest height—but they have not started re-sprouting. This is odd because the variegated brug and a white brug have already send shoots up as has the randomly planted pink brug that is down near the pond. I’ll have to give it more time.

There are still plenty of chores to get on top of. It’s time to look back at the vegetable garden and the weeds there as well as think about getting tomatoes planted and maybe even squash. More mulch needs to be laid in the pathways that haven’t had mulch yet and a few beds need mulch, too.

I started some flower seeds last weekend and re-potted some tomato seedlings but I need to do some more seed sowing this weekend and next week. Lots of little garden chores here and there but I’m making myself stop and enjoy the garden sometimes and attempt not to do chores on occasion. You know, stop and smell the roses!