I Love Spring!

I know that spring isn't officially here yet, but we've been in a bit of a warm spell and garden flowers are starting to pop. I was super thrilled to discover after work today that my first ever successfully blooming tulip has opened up. Previous winters I have planted tulips, both in the ground and in pots on the deck, but they have died or otherwise failed to come up. This winter I bought the tulips and kept them in the fridge until around late January or so, at which time I planted them in these old window boxes I made years ago but never put up under my windows. How great to see the bloom, and I can see that many more are on their way. Success!! The chilling period in the fridge must be the trick, just like the books say. I should be a better student! Lots of other things in bloom in the yard right now. The saucer magnolia is out and smelling great. You need to bring a bloom to your nose to smell the fragrance, but it is really nice and I wish it permeated the yard a little better. The grape hyacinths are up and poking their purple noses through the red bamboo leaves in the circle garden. Lots of daffodils are up and there are more to come. The 'sizzling pink' lorapetalum shrubs are blooming as well. I can see very tiny leaf buds on the trees everywhere, so it won't be too long until the forest is greened up again. It always amazes me that these almost dead looking trees I see from our deck will in a short time be covered with vibrant green leaves. I love mother nature!!! Over the past few weeks I've been planting quite a few things. Lots of conifers in the front yard area and some new peony stalks which I hope will come up (nothing yet but my fingers are crossed - those peony roots look rather dead when you plant them in the ground). I've planted up some baby hostas in pots which I'll hold over for a year and plant them out next spring when they've matured a bit. Doing it this way I get a hosta plant for about 1 dollar, whereas they normally cost around 6-10 dollars at the nursery. The savings doesn't sound like much, but you multiply that by 100 plants and it adds up quickly. Ok, Andrew calls me cheap but if I spent what I wanted to on the yard we would be dead broke. I think the gardening books and magazines really give me spring fever! I planted up some osteospermums for the deck this year. I haven't tried them before but they are supposed to be drought and heat tolerant, which is exactly what happens on our deck in the summer. It is brutal out here in the dead of summer and hopefully these plants will do ok. I love the purple and white blends on each flower and they should get about 2 feet across for each plant, so it should be a good showing. Sidney wanted to help me show you the plants. Well, it is time to go in and make dinner. I'm making a baked eggplant and ziti pasta dish that Andrew and I just love. Excellent recipe which I will email if you want it. I'm out on the deck right now entering this blog - you just gotta love wireless internet and laptop computers. A mockingbird was singing so loud that I heard it over my headphones (I'm listening to internet radio 'Radio Paradise') and I had to record it for you all. I love the way they go through a whole repertoire of other bird songs - very funny to me. Andrew is feeling a little sick right now so he is sleeping on the couch, which is why I've got my headphones on - normally the music would be coming from the stereo. I hope he feels better soon! We have our spring break sailing trip coming up so with some TLC and lots of rest he should be in ship shape (ha ha ha, or I guess that should be har har har).