Plants are doing their thing

I’ve not posted much here lately. I’ve been preoccupied with some things … and just not thinking of anything to write.

It’s now Spring here where we live. Warm temperatures in the day, and above Freezing at night-time. The weeds are all growing. And “real” plants too. Trees are budding. Just the beginning of budding, but it’s happening.

The Pussy Willow bush out front is getting all fuzzy, I love that. The October Glory Maple is blooming it’s little burgundy “flowers”, leaves to come soon! The Yoshino Cherry trees are getting their buds more and more active. Some are swelling and green, and others actually have the pink petals starting to form at the ends of the buds. It’s going to be gorgeous. We have three of them on one side of the property, next to the driveway. We planted them last early Spring, so this is the first good bloom we’ll have with them.

Out back some of the Autumn Flame Maple’s are unfurling tiny burgundy leaves. A no-name tree [planted as a bare stick along with a few other “stick trees” and promptly losing and forgetting the info on each tree. We ID’d one of them last year finally, and found the tree eaten to death just a few weeks ago after looking around the property. The dog we USED to have, got rid of him a few months ago, ate the tree down to the stump. It wasn’t that little, at least 2 1/2 feet tall. We can’t see it from the house, so it went un-noticed until we went looking for it. Good thing that dog wasn’t here anymore. ;)] is really big now, and has it’s thorny branches actively growing and leaves have been out for a few weeks now. It’s just a thorny fast growing thing, one of 5 “flowering” trees from a well known source for trees with membership. We’ve never seen flowers, and have no clue what it is. It has pretty form though, so it’s by the back of our deck.

The other scraggly trees out back, the planting siblings of the “no-name” tree, are looking ready to start leafing out soon. They are so puny compare to no-name, I have no idea what the difference is between them all. They all spent the first two years next to each other in a planting bed. Then were moved last year to final locations. We put thorny no-name near the house since it was so big and nice. And it got really big in just one year. It’s nearly top even with the deck railing, and that’s at least 6 feet off the ground. Nearly needless to say, it’s taller than me. So, it’s growing like a weed. I’d think it was a weed if it didn’t come from a reputable source.

Well, I was doing some weeding earlier this afternoon. We let things go crazy last summer, and never pulled a bunch of weeds back from the edges of the bern we built, and it’s a tangled mess. And in the back, where my husband layed black plastic sheet for several weeks to kill everything off, it’s once again full of Canada Thistle and chickweed and numerous other UIW [un-identified weeds]. So I sprayed Roundup on several areas today, what a hand cramping job that is.

There is so much work to do on the property, and not enough time, or money or energy to do much of anything that makes a difference. The lawn mower needs repaired too. What a bummer. The “grass” is more crabby than anything. Can you say “clumpy”? Long clumpy grass already, it’s no fun.

But all in all, even with all the bad stuff and the non-ability to get much done, when Spring is in full swing, it’ll look so good! The trees will be in color, pinks, reds, whites, and finally lush greens and reds. Exactly what is needed to cool the hot summer that’s a-coming.

When the trees and bushes are all leafed out, they’ll take the focus off of the clumpy crab grass. Right now, the scant looking trees just stand there, practically invisible. So the grass is centerstage. Not for long!