So much to do before it’s warm enough to plant into the new native plant garden in my front yard – that’s the April project. Now I am working on existing plantings. The Missouri evening primrose has come up in the small bed near the mailbox. There is a stone crop there too. I trimmed off the seed heads from last season so that the green at the base will show sooner. I try to leave the small twigs and leaves in the bed…reducing any bare soil that might wash away during the spring rains.

I need to trim the boxwood, but I’ll wait a bit on that. The electric hedge trimmer will make fast work of that job. I got a little sidetracked while I was looking at it when I realized it was blooming…and had a lot of new leaves; it was a good opportunity for some macro photography.

In the back yard – the iris bed where we cut down a pine several years ago was full of stalks from goldenrods. I cleared them away and realized that some of the leaves are rounded instead of pointy like the irises; those are naked lady lilies and there are more of them than last year. The bed is not formal, and I am letting it develop with the idea that the America beautyberry will eventually be the tall plant.

The fragrant sumac that I planted the first fall that we owned the house is blooming! I noticed that there is Japanese honeysuckle (an invasive) in the bed. I have spent several mornings working on it and am at the stage of digging out some of the hubs of the vines. I’ll work to keep the plant in check (or eliminated) this summer.

In the area where the small red buckeye is unfolding its leaves, the debris from last season’s violets and leaves provides good mulch that does not overwhelm the small plant. As it gets larger, I’ll decide if I’ll just leave it with that groundcover or put wood chips around it. There will never be a lawn mower near it….but no bare soil either! way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

The dry days of March are great for working off my ‘to do’ list for the back yard. It does not include doing anything with leaves. I’m pleased that the wind has blown the leaves into two corners of the backyard where they can stay! I will leave them alone and allow whatever insect cocoons are there to empty. Most of the leaves are oak. My goal is start mowing parts of the backyard in May…but I will be mowing less this year than last because of the way the yard is developing.

The Fragrant Sumac I planted a few years ago now has shoots in the yard and is taking more space in the flowerbed as well. The ‘to do’ in that bed is to pull/cut Japanese honeysuckle frequently.

Getting the forsythia and Japanese barberry cut down are high on the ‘to do’ list. The pruning chainsaw will make it a bit easier.

I’ll buy 1 or 2 more paw paws to plant near the one I bought last year since I don’t think the seeds I have in pots are going to sprout.

The more significant list is for the front yard where I will be planting into the large mulch bed I created last fall. I have done one round cutting back the existing crape myrtles that had gotten too tall (I enjoy photographing their empty seed pods). There is some clean up there but the big ‘to do’ before the planting in April is to take dead cedars out of the corner flower bed and clear more rock from around the hens/chicks so that the plant can continue to expand. Trimming the boxwood is not high on the list but I might do the top to keep it from getting too high to reach comfortably.