Even though the weather was unco-operative at times ,and downright nasty at others, I managed to get more done in March than I had hoped to.

-seedlings of sweet peas lathyrus odoratus , love-in-a-puff cardiospermum halicacabum, and hollyhocks were started

-cuttings of pelagoriums , lavendar cotton santolina ,  and honeysuckle were taken and are hopefully rooting as I type

-any day I could get outside , I forced myself to attend to the dragish-ly boring chores of lawn raking, perennial bed clean up and pruning out winter damage

-a new plan was devised for the very large and very daunting area now enclosed by the dog fence and not easyliy mow-able

 You know when you decide to repaint a room, and all of a sudden the rug looks old and crappy , so you get a new one , then the curtains don’t match, so you buy curtains, then th hallway next to the room looks shabby so you go get more paint and on and on..? Well the garden is no different. We put in a fence for the dogs and suddenly pathways had to be extended, plants moved and grass taken out. It encompasses a very large area  and lets face it, I am not the energenic sod remover I once was. My friend Christina started a new landscape business called Upscapes (no web link yet!) and so I promptly hired her to come over and help me design and plant…here is what we have accomplished in the two days we worked before 6 more inches of snow got in our way

We moved a ridiculously heavy hemlock that in the end was successful due only to the fact that our two egos( a force you should fear lol) would not let us accept that a 400 lb rootball could not be lifted out of a 3 foot deep hole by two girls.(well ok , Bill helped for 5 very critical minutes)

We moved a recently installed weeping birch, two snowberry bushes symphoricarpos albus, two red knockout rose bushes, many dainthus and armeria plants that line the new edges and path we outlined ,and multiple daylilys and other perennials that were in the way of the new design.

 The area we were working in is all new garden put in after our house addition and I do not know it well enough yet to be sure of what is planted where. I am sure I will have to relocate many more plants when spring finally gets here and they poke up in unfortunate locations.

I ordered a new bench with an arbor over it (of course for more clematis) and many new plants that will be arriving soon to fill in all the holes .( Including two new viburnums , three new wiegelas , a few new perennials (photos below) The worst part of it so far has been the sod removal , and there is still ALOT of that left to do.

Meanwhile the siberian  squill scilla is starting to bllom, the daffodisl are getting tall, the garden furniture is getting painted and the ornaments getting polyed. Soon we will be outside enjoying it all and that certainly brings a smile to my tired face.