I planted a couple of rows of beets out in the garden, and decided everything else could use a drink. It’s time for all the cool season crops to get planted. I planted a lot of mine a couple weeks ago, and the first seedling to pop up are the radishes. My coral bells have lots of new growth, and I planted some Asclepias to start filling out my rear flower bed.

Flowering plants I’ve seen right now include Dicentra, flowering cherries, Callery Pear, flowering quince, Mahonia, currant, the mid-season tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, and some quite pretty phlox. It’s a wonderful time of year to see everything start to green up. The flowering quince are particularly lovely: but come summer they almost always get iron chlorosis. It’s a great time to add chelated iron or elemental sulfur so they don’t. (As a side  note–other susceptible plants are berries, red and silver maples, and spireas. I saw some silver maples completely yellow in the summer. It was actually very pretty, but then the plant starts to die.)

I need to start mowing regularly this week. It’s been not too bad, but the grass is starting to get too long.  I put in a picture of a lawn overran with clover. I would actually seed clover and wild violets into a lawn. Most people think of them as weeds, but to me they just enhance the grass. I love to pick the wild violets and enjoy the subtle, sweet flower scent. There’s lots of projects I’d like to start on in the landscape–but I think I’ll hold off for a week because my husband has finals right now. Still working on basic spring clean-up, picking up old leaves and branches from the winter.

Plus I’ve got several design projects going on. Design is a lot of fun though, and perfect to do during nap time.