Spring is in the Air

Oh, oh.  My sad rhododendron is sitting with its leaves all furled up, waiting for rain and warmer weather.  I feel quite remiss when I look at its poor cold leaves and wish I had built a burlap shelter for it to weather the weather!  But I don't like the look of a burlap swaddled front garden and I want plants that can survive and thrive in my front garden, bringing interest in all 4 seasons.   But when I look at rhodo's furled leaves I have twinges of conscience. In the hope of warming up the plant, I put some peat and the remainder of a bag of potting soil around the roots.  Like a guilty mom, I  carefully filled buckets of snow to dump on the newly laid soil so the moisture would melt slowly and blanket the roots. I can only be ruthless in giving advice in other people's gardens. Please bloom, I silently plead.

The snowdrops are out. They have been merrily multiplying each year and I help them by moving them into areas that could use their white nodding heads and beautiful green rimmed edges. I've been checking to see what has heaved its roots above ground.  It's always the newly planted shrubs and perennials that seem to pop up.  I make a mental note to keep a few bags of soil in reserve for this time of year to tap around those indecently exposed roots.  I scraped enough earth out of the compost to place on some of the mose seriously exposed.

The birds are busy tweeting and moving about in the bushes.  Propably looking for likely nesting sites.  I have the most beautiful cardinal who sits in bare branches of a small maple gladening my heart every morning.