Yippee! A whole hour so far gardening today. I could have stayed out in the misty rain all day- but my muscles (particularly the ole back) showed me last year that is no longer such a great idea. It is nearly uncontrollable when we get spring fever to rush out in the garden- early weeding, chopping, pruning...hearing birds.....oh joy! But then later in the evening....yikes. "I should have stopped early instead of continuing in a frenzy!" while I am desperately trying to find the Ben Gay. So now I trade with myself- yes I am a wacko- one hour housecleaning "earns" me one hour in the garden. One hour stopping for lunch earns one hour in the garden. I play this game with myself all day long. My back is happy with the new system, and I am actually able to get some other things done too!

Last year I decided I no longer needed a front lawn. I installed a wandering path and a whole bunch of new perennials that I desperately wanted to have in my garden. The grass was taking up way too much precious space. This autumn, I didn't cut down any of the garden either. I let it stand, and fall, and splay and whatever it did. This was difficult for me as I like a nice neat cleaned up garden for winter. Two autumns ago, however, I didn't get to all of the cutting back I usually do. To my delight, the finches plucked on the Echinacea seed heads, and birds came all winter long to the big, beat up looking sunflower seed heads. It was brought to my awareness that I had spent all this time choosing all kinds of Native and bird attracting perennials, but didn't allow them the benefit of winter use. As I spent time this morning cleaning up this area I found little worms under the foliage and signs of growth at the crowns of the plants. Positively delighted to find all my Salvia greggi varieties seemed to have come thru the winter- they are borderline hardy. Not so delighted to discover I planted the Agastache in a spot that looks like a large puddle right now, most likely they will succumb to crown rot. It is rarely the fault of the plant when it dies.....plan carefully for the best successful garden and the greenest of thumbs.

Off to work on a landscape design- another "who needs a front lawn anyhow?" design (yes, Andy, yours!!) for an hour, then one hour for planting seeds (yay!Yay!), then back to the design. Check out the vegetable seed starting schedule just posted to our site yesterday. Happy wonderful misty day! :) Erica