Spring Bee Hiving Moon
Seasonal craziness note: both of the photographs here were taken in our garden on the same day, April 20th, 2011.
Chainsawing today. Cutting back aged amur maple branches, considering eliminating all of these fragile little trees and starting over with something new. Kate raked out fallen leaves and I moved them to a place where they can rest. Both Kate and I cut down perennial stalks and grasses left in place over the winter.
Tulips and iris and crocus have all begun to push out of the ground. None of these will be injured if a frost comes; they’re spring ephemerals or early risers. Their strategy is to get up, bloom, go to seed and store food for next spring’s big push before the leaves come out and other plants get in their way. It’s a smart plan and one that gives us beautiful blooms often as winter seems to have barely left the building.
We’ll work away at it, an hour or two at a time and by the end of the week we’ll have those 
we can reach without compacting soil spruced up and ready for the growing season.
Our magnolia is in full bloom right now, a white torch in an otherwise brown world. Kate wanted a magnolia and she got one. If we don’t get the severe cold, say -30, it gives us an early spring pick me up.
It always feels to good to get outside, shake off the gardening rust and slowly get up to speed with the yard again. When we bought this house 18 years, we spent a fair amount of cash upfront on landscaping, figuring that we wanted to enjoy while we lived here and that’s its maturation would swing into place just when we needed it. We were right.
This year and the next couple we’ll focus on preparing our flower beds, vegetable beds and orchard for minimal maintenance, keeping active as far as planting and intensive tending only those areas we can manage.
