SPRING HAS SPRUNG...

THE WINTER HUNG ON GAMELY, long and cold.  Spring had the occasional moment and certainly her foot in the door.  Now it is Spring, Spring, and more Spring!

I got the Kitchen Remodel out of the way just in time although it is still somewhat of a shambles in the below-deck Sun Room, with bits and pieces of timber piled up here and there, waiting to trap the unwary foot.  I have 15 or so flower plants on the go and around 20 trees at various stages of infancy.  There are certainly signs of a certain 'cluckiness' in me as I transfer the plants from inside to outside in the morning and back in at night.

So...the switch from inside to outside has definitely taken place.

Four dwarf firs had been transferred, a week ago, from their most unfavorable placement in the shadow of the north-side of the house and now stand sentinel duty alongside the sidewalk, leaving just the holly plants and the lone Azalea along the immediate house front.

 I was sure they would not survive the transplant and they were poorly rooted we (my friend Walt and I) were not able to get much of a root ball.  However, with proper soil, mulching and watering, they seem to be hanging on.  They join a small fir further into west lawn area (excuse, if you can, the auditory pun), from my good friend Uma's home.  It will eventually dwarf them.

Also, two mulberry trees were delivered mid-this-week and duly planted near the east-side fence.  These are American Black mulberries and I hope they will show the large, long black fruit that is the hall mark of this variety.  I love mulberries, the fruit of heaven!

The hollies have been severely pruned and moved to better positions now that the firs have gone.

I am sure that little of this will grasp your attention for long.  The purpose of  all this planting is to further unite the house with its living environment.  The trees will act of provide shade and direct the breezes.  It will take a while for all this to sort out, since trees are not at all like Jack's magic beans and do not grow overnight.  At 76 this month, I am unsure of how much of all this I will see, hopefully all of it.  Just the doing of it will get me there.

As I signed for the house on my birthday (May 29, hint, hint!) and moved in on June 1, this will make just two years that the house and I have been made one.  It is a bit like a marriage, I suppose, since the house certainly has much that is old, borrowed, blue, or new.

The garden will be slow progress, so postings to this Blog may become few and far between.  There will be a modest remodel of the upper bathroom.  It needs light and I can make do with just one bath (there is a nice one downstairs) so it will be come a 'shower room' rather than a 'bath room'.  Sometime  in early Summer will see this work done.  Also awaiting me, the painting of the exterior.  An immediate project is to entice the humming birds to my rear deck.  Somewhat more interesting, perhaps.

Though you will not hear much of it, the work of the garden will ultimately be the more fundamental and I hope to enjoy the gradual development of a 'mini-forest' as my surrounds.