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Saturday Morning Garden Blogging Vol. 21.13 - It Sure Looks a Lot Like Spring! [1]

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Date: 2025-03-29

We are a chatty bunch who love to garden and grow things, from vegetables to specialty flowers. Many of us are here all week and welcome all for a refreshing break, photos, and conversation. Come on in, get dirt under your fingernails!

It’s here! Spring has finally sprung. I have had a few glorious warm days to tidy up the gardens and have a look around to see what’s sprouting. Last week it snowed and rained and now it is snowing and raining again.

Crocus and early iris are blooming like crazy everywhere in the gardens. These purple striped crocus are some of my favorite. For a crocus, they are giant.

Purple and white striped crocus

Although we don’t get the snows we used to when I first moved into this house, we do get some very moist winters. These daffodils are pretty happy right now, but later I’m going to dig this garden up. I have hired a gardener, and my new tenant is willing to do the heavier work I can’t do anymore. I got the utilities marked and I’m ready to get started. I have to dig out the vinca, asters and yarrow. None of those are my favorite, so it’s time for a change. Also, they are too big for the space and I’d rather have sedum ground cover and penstemon there. The daffodils will go back in, or maybe I’ll dig around most of them. I have an ancient columbine that is struggling and I’m hoping it will do better if I clear out the vinca around it. There’s also a rose bush and a white bleeding heart that throws out seeds, which I’ve never run across before. I’m going to try transplanting some.

daffodils

Sometimes it’s a good idea to wait a bit and see if some things that look like they are dead are not so dead after all. I have some pots on a little back deck that are usually full of annuals. Last week I cleaned out most of them but left a few for no reason other than it was getting chilly and I was done with it. The two plants in the pot I missed are sprouting. They are the Baby’s Breath I bought last fall and put in the pot until I decided where to put them. Good thing I decided to leave it alone for a bit. I am always reminded that some plants are late to sprout, as they are like me and hate the cold weather. I know where everything is, but always a good idea to mark them in the fall. I have dug up perennials by accident in the past.

Gypsophila. There are two plants in the pot. Surprise!

I have started to get rid of all the extra stuff we don’t need or use that is hanging around this house. Don’t we all have the tendency to put that temporary summer pot away for next year, or all the little annual 4” pots? They do come in handy for potting up tomatoes and peppers so I’ll save those. You never know! But what is in that tub I never looked in last year? Must not be something I’ll need. To cut down on pots, I’ve been separating the plastic from the glazed. These guys are waiting for this year’s annuals. Any plastic pots are going to the thrift store.

Empty pots waiting for color

The deer are out early and late for the green spring grass. Charlie lets them know not to get too close. This little bunch is up late, just heading off to bed after a long night of grazing. Fawning season starts soon. We’ve already seen the big brown bear. That is, everyone but me saw the big brown bear.

Getting ready for a late bedtime

Down the street from me is an historic enigma of a house on a full town lot. Lots of vegetation but it’s extremely unkempt, always has been. It’s a long involved story but the TL:DR is that the house is an original in town, on the historical register. The family has lived there for generations. The children are our age, (old, lol), and estranged. One of them lived in the house and the other sibling lived elsewhere in town for years. The resident, I’ll call her Laura, was a hoarder and a rather strange individual, probably agoraphobic. She would grow vegetation around the perimeter to keep the prying eyes out. Granted, the neighborhood has a lot of tourists, but the work was not done properly. Laura has not been there in a while, recovering from an injury. A few weeks ago, she suddenly died. Rumor has it that the father had willed the property to the CO historical society after the kids were gone, but I don’t know what kind of claim the sibling has on it, also subject to many rumors. The house has been hoarded for a long time and the yard is in terrible shape, so we’ll see what happens now.

Holloway House

One thing that Laura did was plant spring bulbs to naturalize all over the place. Every year it’s a treat to walk along the sidewalks along the property and see all the bulbs flowering in a glorious mass.

Crocus, Scilla; and later, allium

It is a wonder that a camera just cannot capture.

It hasn’t been disturbed in years.

The back of the property.

Snowdrops at the bottom right of the photo. Otherwise very overgrown and a lot of dead brush.

Speaking of old, I dug out a camera that my mom had given me, a digital point and shoot Kodak. The cord for downloading to a computer had disappeared so I had to wait for one from eBay to get the photos off the camera. It had some photos my mom took, and some later garden photos I had taken. How fun! A blast from the past, for sure.

My mom and Baxter on an August day in 2005

Peppers from my garden, another photo on the camera

My mother is talking to me — transcription below

I found these items when organizing my workbench. The watercolor is not my mom’s painting, perhaps a card that I had sent her at some point because I knew she would like it. I found several of those in her belongings after she died when we went through it and divided everything out. She likely wrote the sticky note in the weeks before she died since the handwriting is a little shaky. I thought it would be appropriate to share right now.

“Zen Master Says Zen is: Infinite Gratitude for all that is past. Infinite Care for all that is Present and Infinite Responsibility for all that is future.”

We’re expecting rain and snow for the next week. I’ll have to do another walkabout in a few days to see what else is coming up! I know the lilies are peeking out and there are many perennials starting to venture out. I hope it’s not too early for some of them but I’m sure they’ll do fine.

The apricots are starting to bloom. I wonder if they will get a frost? Hopefully at least a nip to cull them out. they are prolific.

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