I’ve finally conquered the grackle problem with hot seed, feeders that have baffles down low over the feeder openings and flat woodpecker feeders that only their long tongues can manage. The grackles aren’t totally out of luck but now they are not eating everything in sight.

Knockout is really a knockout this year with more sun...

Amsonia and Impatiens in an unlikely combination

The wonderful news is that I had gotten a suntan in my formerly shady garden. Now I have the best of both worlds, half sun and half shade. I have giant tomatoes, six feet tall, filled with fruit. I have loads of flowers blooming and for the first time my roses are doing well. Just goes to prove that mother nature knows best.

The cherry tomatoes are making fresh salad every day a reality

A Lavender Garden

I particularly loved this garden on North Pelham which like my own is an English whimsy garden of “rooms”. This garden actually is large enough to have rooms whereas mine is pretty much confined to “areas”, but I loved the lavender theme they used in the garden at the front of the house. The house itself is pale green trimmed with fuschia shutters - an altogether pretty sight!

Now that we have gotten back to our normal rainfall, weeds will be competing with your young plants and seedlings. Use a long handed cultivator to keep them down and to keep the soil around your plants nice and loose.

I have had some delightful salads with the mixed mesclun salad greens that I planted. The cherry tomatoes have several clusters ripening and the slicing tomato also has some nice medium sized globes on it. I see blossoms but not sets on the Roma tomato. The garden has much more sun since my huge tree came down and I am sure to have a lot more delightful meals from my herbs and veggies. The zucchini has blossoms on it and the onions are multiplying, chives are growing, bell peppers are growing,

I am collecting rose petals from my English roses and mixing them with lavender to try to create some potpourri. I probably need to do more but just the petals and lavender sprigs smell wonderful.

I’ve finished my spring clean up and the garden is neat and pretty and a joy in which to sit and write on my laptop.

My stately old cherry tree was a victim. Rising eighty five feet into the air, it began to drop sap a few years back. I should have cut it then, but I kept hoping someone would want that twenty feet or so of straight vigin trunk - think of the beautiful cherry veneer that could have come from it. Instead the storm on April 13th brought it crashing down, missing me by about twelve feet. About eight years ago that same tree saved my life when an ancient poplar came down and the cherry stopped it from crushing my guest house where I was working.

I’ll miss that tree. Each morning I would gaze out at it and marvel at it’s ability to weather the elements. I wondered what it had witnessed in my neighborhood as concrete encroached on it and smog choked it. Did a bird sow it’s original seed, or did some human carefully coax it along? Who sat beneath it’s shade reading a book? Did anyone vow their love to another beneath it’s limbs?

The tree reminds me that life is finite and I must make every minute count.

Last year before the storm

It has been ten days since the giant cherry tree came down in my back garden. I was pretty upset for about three days, then I began to realize just how lucky I had been and how much gratitude I should be showing.

Now I have done a lot of clean-up and realize that I have more sun, a less cluttered look and can look forward to more flowers close to my little deck.

Also my new rose bed looks lovely and the roses smell wonderful - one of my criteria with the gentleman who installed it.

Japanese Silverbell - must be removed

I must remember to be grateful that my son and I narrowly escaped death.

However, my beautiful little garden, fifteen years in the making, has been destroyed.

Recently, someone directed me to the “dentyne.com” website. The website only allows you to view it for three minutes, then it goes blank. What a great idea. We should all be out enjoying our beautiful planet instead of sitting in front of computers.

So, this post is short and sweet and I am back out to the garden, preparing soil and weeding so that I can begin spring planting next week.

See you outside!

This is a great time of year to transplant things - the soil is soft enough and plants are still dormant.

In a moment, I could hear what she had heard so much earlier. Thumps and squeals were eminating from just outside the house.

I listened for a moment, expecting to hear the usual snarls and complaints that accompany my older male cat attacking some hapless prey. But no, these sounds of distress did not appear to be coming from a cat.

I stepped out onto my deck and started toward the sounds. I have a storage box in the back yard where I keep my cushions for the outdoor chairs. It can also double as a seat.

This winter I put a large box of birdseed in it for convenience in filling the feeders. The thumps and bumps were coming from it.

With more bravado than common sense, I lifted the lid and two young raccoons flew out of the box, disappearing immediately under my house.

The wise thing to do will be call a critter remover, but somehow I have to admire the raccoons, possoms, hawks and herons that have adapted to man taking over their territory.

Maybe they read my new ‘Wildlife Habitat’ sign…