Garden on March 19

Herb garden and lavenders

It sure doesn't feel like spring the past few days, with the snow and chilly rain we have had. Yesterday was just the most miserable day. I went out this morning to look around, and in the garden at least, there are signs of spring. A little snow won't hurt the garden. The weekend before last I cleaned out this front garden and I love how it looks now, early spring,  so full of possibilities. Little patches of perennials, clumps of bulbs appearing, so much going on below the surface. We just need a week of sunshine and lots more will be happening. Once it warms up a bit, I will spread bonemeal around the emerging perennials and bulbs. Speaking of which, the sun just came out!

Perennial garden

The lawn companies have been making their rounds and can I rant for just a minute about how these 'supposed' landscapers are doing the 'volcano mulch' around trees in my neighborhood?  Aren't they supposed to know how to mulch a tree for goodness sake? It drives me crazy to see them just pile on more and more mulch around a tree. Mulch should never be more than 2-4  inches high and should never be placed up around the trunk of the tree, which allows diseases and pests to attack the tree. Thick blankets of mulch will prevent the tree from getting water and will eventually suffocate the tree. When we mulch our trees in the spring, we always break up the old mulch around the trees and poke some holes into the ground a little, then we spread a thin layer of new mulch around the tree, and out to the drip line, and always leaving the base of the trunk exposed. Just saying.

Volcano mulch in neighbor's yard