No Going Back!

Spring has arrived...and even if we get another rain storm (considered a winter event here!) there is no going back. The wisteria is draped in all its spring beauty, making me pause when I walk out the door and catch that whiff of perfumed air...just enough to savor and not overwhelm. The freesias in the ground have begun to open...they're always a bit behind the ones in pots. They have a much stronger fragrance but there aren't enough of them for it to be annoying. The dutch iris began opening the day after Easter...one of the downsides of such an early 'first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox'. But now you can almost watch them as they open...in the hour and a half we were outside with the day care kids today two blooms went from-blue-peeking out to open. The bearded iris flower stalks are popping up like crazy and just beginning to swell...I can't wait to see if any of the rhizomes I brought from San Diego are among them! The day care was closed the Monday and Tuesday after Easter for a little spring break and I got lots of gardening done...digging in soil conditioner to part of the old garden bed, planting the rain lily, pelargonium and Mulberry Jam salvia I got at the flower show, cutting back the privets a bit (one of those almost-finished jobs from a few months ago), pulling privet babies out of everywhere, replanting anise and lettuce that got used for salad fixings by the sparrows and making a new attempt at rigging up bird net to protect the next batch (note to self...consider buying plant protectors from Gardener's Supply), cleaning out under the cotoneaster and just simply puttering around...something I need to do for my mental, as well as physical, health. Nothing can make me more peaceful after something stressful (taxes...ugh) than being in the yard with no one to talk to and nowhere I'm expected to go. And as a special prize...my Stargazer lilies are emerging.These are the ones I dug around for several months ago in order to move and couldn't find. I thought maybe they had disappeared...they've been in too much shade the last two years to do really well and I was hoping to move them. But there they are...popping up happily and now that I think of it...I took out the privet that was shading them...so maybe they were hiding because they knew things would be better there this year!