Spring officially began March 20 and I was so excited to say au revoir to winter. Then, mother nature played a mean trick on the folks in Montana (and several other places) by giving us a dose of winter mid-April. We made the most of our snow day and the snow melted by evening. Now, our temps are about 20 degrees below average and I’m not liking it. Our fruit trees don’t seem to mind, though. Ben is happy he hasn’t had to worry about a late freeze killing his prized trees. We’re already in May and our plants are just beginning to turn green.
The bleeding hearts on the shady north side are doing swell.
As are the neighboring lily of the valley. Last year, these had already bloomed.
Before we filled our front flower bed with roses and rocks to eliminate weeding, we had tulips and Allium. A few obstinate tulips have popped up from under the layer of landscaping fabric and rocks. Such a sweet surprise.
Notice the rose bush behind. One tiny leaf shoot? Seriously, I was hoping for tons (literally, one ton) of roses this year. That and two tons of apples from our trees to make apple crisp. Speaking of trees, this is depressing.
Where’s the beef green? This day lily might do something this year. The past three years have only given us green. Sad, because the flowers are a deep purple. Don’t ask why I haven’t removed the tag…
One thing that hasn’t had a problem growing or photosynthesizing is our grass. In fact, it has over-grown our side-walk.
Ben and Vincent dug up the grass and our side-walk is about six inches wider. More good news. We stained our fence last fall. Because we had never used the stain, we wondered how well the finish would hold up over winter.
Luckily, the stain is still in mint condition. Yahoo to not re-staining this year.
Have you been stuck in a winter rut like we have? Or are you a lucky duck and live in a warm climate? Have your flowers and/or trees bloomed? What is your favorite plant in your yard? Are you like I am and wish a magnolia tree would grow in your climate? What other plants do you wish you could have? I can’t wait to get some plants in our window boxes and for the fruit trees to flower. Just a little longer…
ourhumbleabodeblog.com 
wow, in Ohio, we’re already well through with the spring flowers, which is kind of sad! We have a huge magnolia tree, and it’s already bloomed and shed its flowers (with some help from the windy rainy weather.) Your lawn is amazingly green, I’m impressed!
my favourites in our current garden are our rose bushes, which seem to be some sort of indestructible variety…least favourite is the sweetgum tree that drops nasty pointy balls over the entire lawn year round. Good thing I don’t have a chain saw, or that baby would be gone!
I’m in Houston so we’ve been flowering for a while. We had a cold winter so some of my plants died back and it’s taking them longer to bloom but they are showing promise at the moment. My favorites are the gardenias, oleanders and my gladiolas. We also have bottlebrush trees, plumeria (which miraculously survived our cold winter w/ the help of xmas lights), roses, crepe myrtles, agapanthus, a peach tree, and some ugly red flowering things that’s name escapes me right now but my husband loves.
I’m glad you get out of staining this year. It’s always a pain but it is on our “to do” list for this year. Last time we did it was before any of the plants were in or big. This time we will have to work around everything.
The picutres were much easier to see this time, good size! I like the change 🙂
Thanks for the update, Megan! I’m so glad to hear the new size is working for everyone. 🙂
Hi Amanda! I love your blog!
Spring has started in my neck of the woods, beautiful British Columbia. I bought a Magnolia tree last year. I was envying a ginormous magnolia tree at the end of my street, and just had to have one for our back yard.
http://atickledpinklife.blogspot.com/2011/03/spring.html
Thanks for being such a fantastic blogger, very inspiring!
Hi Desiree!
Thank you so much for your amazingly sweet words! Thank YOU for finding inspiration here. 🙂 So jealous that you have a magnolia tree. One our honeymoon in Savannah, I fell in love, but I’m sure I would kill a tree.
Thanks!
Amanda
I’m surrounded by magnolias, camellias, and gardenias, but I would trade all of that for TULIPS!!! They’re my absolute fave but won’t grow this far south. The grass is always greener!