growing again

It is raining. Things are growing, or starting to. I would have taken pictures except that I have had bad experiences in the past with cameras in the rain.

The ground is extremely soggy today, and there are portions of the back yard, and the front boulevard, that are completely covered in a mat of leaves from last fall. We kept an eye on that, so I'm not sure how it happened -- but if the leaves in the front don't get dealt with, they are going to kill the grass completely. I guess I could plant sedum there, then.

I haven't really had a good look at the front yard, but I walked around the back yard in the rain this morning. The iris I planted are starting to come up, or some of them are. It looks like I planted them a little too shallowly in the fall, so I think I'll lay some thick compost mulch around them this spring. The fritillaria is shooting up, the daylilies are starting to grow (no word yet on whether or not the ones I planted, the ones I got instead of the salvia, are growing; I can't remember where I planted them). There are tulips and croci sprouting up everywhere, with apparent minimal damage from squirrels. I half wonder if it's because the squirrels are full of birdseed. Daffodils and hyacinths are up. I couldn't tell if the ferns and the single dog-tooth violet I got from Veseys have sprouted around the tree. Since I didn't get any photos today, here's a photo by fishy of the fritillaria in bloom from last year (it was quite spectacular):



The spring garlic is going like mad. And interestingly, one of the rhubarb plants, both of which I thought were quite dead, is alive. I don't exactly know what to do about that. I do want rhubarb in my garden, but my suspicion is that it is not going to do at all well where it is. I don't think rhubarb really likes to be moved, though. I don't really have time to do it today anyways, since if there is any garden work to be done it will be to move the hostas out of the front yard and into the back somewhere, and then maybe even move the grass to the front.

The shallots I planted last year and didn't manage to harvest are all up this year, which kind of blows my mind a bit. I will have to take them out, but I don't know if I can do anything with them (like divide them and let them grow, and harvest them?) or not. Will have to do some reading.

Will have photos of the sprouted plants in the sunroom, and of my efforts to plant strawberries later on.