Spring Photos!

Tulips! Crabapple blossoms! These photos capture the beauty of spring in my garden. But I have to confess that they were taken last year, and not by me.



My friend Jan Tenney visited my garden last May and snapped a few photos. She dropped them by last week, and they make me so excited for spring.



The garden will look very different this year. By next week I will be ready to post pictures of the newly completed front steps. They just need a couple of finishing touches before their photo op.



I'm looking forward to posting pictures of the rennovated west garden as well. We removed all the grass, put a flagstone path down the center, and I transplanted perennials to make matching borders down each side of the path. We also added a 3.5 foot tall (just over a meter) basalt column at the entry to the path.



I will have to post about our revamped sprinkler system, too. It should be much more efficient, and I am looking forward to less hand watering this summer.



But meanwhile, just enjoy Jan's spring photos. Aren't they delicious?

March Update

Last month I hit my 100th post and the second anniversary of my blog. Whoops, I guess I missed noting that. I was also out of town on my daughter's birthday. It was just that kind of month.



Out in my garden the yellow crocuses (or is it just crocus when plural?) started blooming a week or two ago. The purples ones are starting now. The hellebores seem permanenetly fixed in the bud stage. Delphiniums, bearded iris, the 'evergreen' daylilies and baby columbines are showing new green leaves.



We're continuing work on the front yard rennovation. It's a big mess where the front steps are being built. My little kids are getting good at climbing up on the porch without steps. The sprinkler modifications are about halfway done, and the concrete curbing guy is supposed to get here any minute. The west flagstone path and boulders might get set tomorrow.



I'm still trying to decide whether to go with black or grey-brown shutters, whether to get rain chains or rain-cup-chains (will the cups burst if water freezes in them?), and how wide to make the top of the post at the corner of the porch. I think I found some light fixtures that both my husband and I can live with. Best of all, they cost about a tenth of the price of the ones I was looking at online. Fewer bells and whistles, but less headache later if they get hit with a stray basketball or something.
So there's the update for this week, with a few random pictures from my archives. Orange dahlia, pink hydrangea, blue siberian iris and coral-pink azalea - all with a contrasty effect added in photoshop. Enjoy!