succinct for once

The highest accolade I can give a series of books is when there hasn't been a new one for a while and I'm dying of curiosity to see what the gang's been up to lately.

That's the sort of series I'm looking for.

this year's real first garden picspam!!!

And I got out and dug this afternoon, too (I "reshaped"/enlarged the back bed a bit -- I guess you'd say deepened? -- not widened, anyway). There is nothing like the smell of freshly dug dirt in the springtime. Absolutely nothing. When I -- finally -- planted my bargain basement echinacea that I bought last fall, I was extremely gratified to notice that five years of digging out rocks and adding yearly layers of compost has paid off -- to quote Ekaterin, I could have thrust my arm up to the elbow in the soil of the perennial bed [g]. Well, almost, anyway.


Lots of sprouts in the back garden. The clump of species crocus is already finished blooming, and something (not me) decided to transplant my grape hyacinths and glory of the snow back here so that now they're scattered all over the place instead of in noticeable clumps [wry g]. Still, there's a lot more green than there was even a couple of weeks ago. Esp. the clematis, both of which are getting going with a vengeance.


The hellebore next to the back door has been blooming for well over a month now. The bleeding heart got too eager and wound up frostbit, but it's coming back. The tulips are still all just floppy foliage in the tub.


Mostly pansies and primroses so far. The big purple thing is an aubrieta, the purple thing to the right of the pansy tub is the anemone that's in my icon. There's a nice big swath of glory of the snow next to the daylily that ate New York (foliage only so far, of course) up closer to the door. Oh, and Alistair the snail is to the top right of the pansy tub.


This is Alistair. He was a Christmas present [g].

And these are true potential, my bedroom windowsill seedlings:



Godetia, gloriosa daisies, hollyhocks, linaria. And bare dirt that, gods willing, will someday be larkspur (I have terrible luck with larkspur no matter how I try to grow it -- wintersowing, windowsill, direct-in-the-ground).


Marigolds, candytuft, and calendulas.


Baby blue eyes and bachelor's buttons.

And that's my first garden picspam of the year!

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

I do love Beaker. With a passion.