SPRING IS FINALLY HERE

some of the many plants I bought.

After a miserable March and an April not much better with rain sometimes mixed with snow and awful wind storms bringing down branches and sometimes trees here in Northeast Ohio. May has arrived with sunshine and nice weather. I did have lots of daffodils and narcissus all over in April, but nothing else in the way of flowers and even very few of my trees had any leaves starting to show.

The Amish Sugar Loaf Green hous 

On Saturday May 5^th my sisters Elaine, Suzanne and I headed out for our yearly trip to Bluestone Perennials in Madison, Ohio up by Lake Erie to shop for perennials with the $75.00 gift certificate our younger brother, Phil gives to his sisters for Christmas each year. It’s an event we look forward to. On the way there we stop at Sugar Loaf Greenhouse, an Amish run greenhouse with lots of flowers, too. My sisters bought some there, but I didn’t buy anything because I live close enough to go there on my own and that way Elaine’s trunk wouldn’t get filled up with three of us shopping. I did go back on Monday and bought four beautiful rose bushes and four flats of annuals to plant in pots and longer containers to put on the graves of my mom and dad, my son John and my six-year old granddaughter, Megan.

After we finished shopping at Bluestone not getting a lot because their small pots of perennials no more than three or four inches square cost $7.95 or $9.95 each. They did have some larger ones on sale near the door for $3.00 each, and I bought four of those. Afterwards we went to down town Madison and had lunch in a small restaurant. The food was very reasonable and quite delicious. Afterwards we drove to the Madison Park on the edge of Lake Erie. Elaine and I went down to the beach, but because Suzanne has not totally recovered from her smashed hip several months ago, she stayed at the top looking out over the lake with clouds on the horizon.

My  yellow daffodils are done but these narcissus aren't.
My smallest magnolia tree is in the background.

Since the beginning of May, flowers are coming out everywhere. Dandelions that so many people hate in their yards are like little suns in the large area behind my barn and in my yard, too. The vinca vines around my house have beautiful blue flowers. In the small grove of trees in my back yard that I call my Cook’s Forest area, trillium with white beautiful flowers is blooming and there are yellow daffodils on the edge there, too. In fact very few areas of my yard don’t have daffodils or the white narcissus blooming.

I forget the name of these flowers growing in different places.

There are small plants with a mixture of pink and blue flowers in various places throughout my gardens. I wish I could remember the name of them. My sister told me on Saturday, but I already forgot it.

Both my Korean Spice bushes are blooming and smell so wonderful. My Japanese maple has finally got its colorful leaves although not quite as big as they will get. Behind the Korean Spice Bush is a tall  dogwood tree.

 I have started cleaning out my little goldfish pond near the patio. The water lilies are just starting to come up. Because it’s mostly in shade, they rarely bloom. My crab apple trees are getting blooms, and so is one of my pear trees. I think my old apple trees are starting to bloom, too. 

The May apples I transplanted from my woods.

The white Magnolia behind my vegetable and flower garden has already bloomed and lost its blooms, but my other two magnolia trees with pink blooms are still blooming. The May apples that I transplanted from my woods to a shady area have spread out. The peonies are up although not yet ready to bloom. It’s the same with all my irises and even more so with my hundreds of daylilies that popped up in March everywhere. They won’t bloom until July.

The side yard where my son cup up the tree so I can mow now.

I was going to start mowing my lawns, but the front yard had a huge branch as big and bushy as a small tree in the front yard because while I was out of town there was a storm and it landed on my roof. My son-in-law saw it and called my son and he went up on a ladder and threw it off. Last evening he came over with a chain saw and cut it up and took the branches off to a weedy place near the fence by my side woods. That whole day I had been cutting branches off the long tree that had fallen across my side yard with the branches at the top stuck in one of the almost dozen rhododendrons I’ve planted around my place. Soon they’ll be blooming. I had hauled three wheelbarrows full of branches out to my brush pile near the side yard close to my large pond. When Joe finished with the front yard one, he came over and cut that long log that went from the north woods grove almost to my driveway. I had to yell at Maggie when she tried to attack his chain saw. I put her in the house.

One of my crab apple trees covered with blooms.

After he finished that and left, I fed my ponies, barn cats and gathered two eggs from my four hens. I could hear Joe mowing over at his place and then he came over and cut all the large open area behind my barn and vegetable garden. When he was done there I started raking up the grass and putting it into my wheelbarrow for my ponies. They’ve pretty much eaten down their small pasture. When I left the barn and started for my house, Joe came down the road and mowed my front yard, beside the house, the old orchard on the south side of my house, behind my well house, the driveway and in front of the barn. He keeps telling me if I took down my arbors to the back yard and the side yard he’d mow those, too. I keep telling him that’s my exercise although I haven’t even started my mower yet. It’s not a riding mower, but I planned on mowing my back yard and the side yard now that the dead tree is gone the next day,. but then I  headed down to a local church to vote and then headed to The Pochedly Greenhouse where I buy a lot of plants. I had their two sons in my third grade class, but not their daughter because a new principal wouldn’t allow parents to pick their teacher choice. Sometimes they give me a discount.

Trillums I planted in the small grove in my back yard.

Today  I’m going to start on weeding my gardens and planting what I bought at the three garden centers I visited. Of course, I've been saying that for days now, and today I have to Deliver Mobile Meals and it's supposed to rain, too.

What do you like about spring?