Catching Up - The Brief, Strange Spring of 2018

It's always hard to predict when spring will show up in this part of the country. After a cold and rainy start, followed by a three day blizzard in mid-April, it finally made a brief but glorious appearance in June. The poor plants in my garden had quite a rocky start but eventually they persevered. In the end there were a few less than spectacular performers but lots of overachievers, too!  

The ants didn't waste any time, they showed up for work on the peony blooms right away.

This was a good year for our crabapple. The pink side usually blooms first and most of the time it's petals are gone before the flowers on the white side begin to open. It's nice when they coordinate!

To be honest, it was probably the one day of mid 90° F. temps that got the white buds to open sooner. Later, another bout of unseasonably hot and rainy weather brought out a bumper crop of mosquitoes!

These super short daffodils were one of the more freakish surprises of the season.

Not all of the daffodils came up short - could that be where the saying comes from? Anyway, about three quarters of them didn't come up at all so I'll probably plant some new ones this fall.

Then there was this pile of snow in the parking lot by one of the garden centers. It was one of several  and as I wheeled my cart full of new plants past it, I had some serious doubts about their chances of surviving. The snow melted right before Mother's Day and by the end of the month I had finally convinced myself it would be okay to plant the flowers. They are currently doing quite well.

On the overachievers list are these lilacs that HM and I planted five years ago. This spring they finally put out some spectacular blooms with a great fragrance! I was about to give up on that ever happening but apparently they flower best after a cold, harsh winter, who knew?

On another positive note, we have new neighbors! It seems that untidy stick across the entry is to keep out unwanted visitors. There's been lots of singing but no signs of any hatchlings yet.

Finally, Burt and Ivy decided to flaunt convention and threw a Friday the 13th party. As usual, it got completely out of hand but since they're not superstitious, they don't believe in bad luck. Guess we will see how well that works out for them.

Do you celebrate on Friday the 13th? 

Thanks for stopping by!