It's April!

The first few days of April have been gorgeous. We even broke a record the other day. The high was 8o degrees and the old record was 79 degrees.

We have been cleaning out the beds since I didn't do this last fall. I prefer to let the dead stems capture leaves so that there is a cover of mulch on the ground. This is especially important during the winters when there is little insulating snow fall.

Yesterday, I planted four pots of violas. I also took Ken's old grill (he bought a new one last week) and put it in the back garden. I planted one Marguerite daisy, three trailing Lysimachia "Aurea" and six violas in it. I dug the Marguerite daisy out of the butterfly house bed and took the Lysimachias out of the pots that they were growing in last summer. After the violas die off, I will put another type of annual in that space. Ken said that he when I told him that I was going to use the grill as a planter that he didn't think that he liked the idea but after he saw it he changed his mind.

Ken and I also clipped back the butterfly bushes and the clematises. Last week I checked out the two clematises and they had no new growth. A few days later they were loaded with buds. Ken hated to cut them back but I assured him that they would be much stronger if he did.

I want to keep track of the purchases that I make. However, I think that I will use a separate posting for this.