This is the first day that I have been able to take my morning tea out to my tiny patio. Half the back lawn is still under snow, but in the clear area near the house a few pale blue crocuses are in bloom - what a treat. The bare lawn is very soggy but so far the melt has gone smoothly without huge puddles or the underwater garden of a few former years.
Now comes that spring walk-about where you pick up all the flyers and papers that have blown in over the winter and try to see what is alive and what is damaged. I note the caragana hedge has been half pushed over by the weight of the snow. Still it is as tough as nails and will recover although it may need tying up. Caragana is wonderful stuff: tough, long living (there are hedges in town that are 100 years old), and provide good privacy. They do need pruning however, but that is about all you need to do with them. (unless they attract aphids but that is easily fixed.)
A small columar cedar in the shade garden has also been partly felled by the weight of the snow. I cannot remove it from its prison - still frozen in.
Alas, the daphne bush has a three broken stems. Other stems are still frozen into a drift but the stems that have struggled free are putting on leaves. Optimistic shrub! Daphne is wonderfully pretty shrub but on the cusp of hardiness for this area. Mine is in a very sheltered spot and has survived several winters but never seems to grow any bigger. I am not sure if can survive this winter's mauling.
I can see buds on the Adelaide Hoodless Rose, but the other roses are buried still.
As usual the garden is a mess in the spring. I do no fall clean up. I never cut back perennials in the fall. I want the stalks to hold the insulating snow. I have lost very few perennials using this method even in those terrible winters when the heavy snow comes very late and the temperature plummets.
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