Ghostwater Garden

On Comment Spam

{ED:  It seems I owe Mr. Sparks an apology.  What I took for content was advertising, a blog support that almost any blogger can take advantage of, offsetting the cost of the blog itself. 

Readers, your comments below reflect my observations.  It is difficult to face the spammage some days, and spam fatigue may lead to errors. 

I stand a bit red-faced and hope that next time, I will pay better attention.

Jenn}

Original Post:

If you offer a product or service that you think might be of interest to my readers, contact me - the email is in the sidebar.  If I agree with you, I'll be happy to add you in my linkbar.

Any trick links to commercial sites that appear in the comments will be summarily deleted.  I don't want to feed the spam-beast here. 

Andrew Sparks, I hope that you exist, and that you did enjoy your visit to my site.  I was really happy when I read your comments, and then my mood plummeted to bleak and grey when I realized that they were just a 'come-on' to get me to a commercial site that I am not interested in.  I grow my own flowers, thanks.  I have no need of a florist link. 

Has anybody else out there read Steinbeck's "The Chysanthemums"?

Signs of Spring, Report from Zone Five

{rough draft}

We are finally in the long thaw.  Like the long freeze before it, this transition is subject to sudden reversals and unexpected quirks... but it is definitely approaching spring around here.

I've had some early crocus up for about a week now, it's been too rainy/cloudy for them to open, but they are holding steady, waiting for that opportunity to arrive.

I went out after writing the above, and lo and behold - shone the sun and opened those tender flowers.  Lovely.

We have such lousy snow cover in this region that I usually leave my 'fall' cleanup for spring.  This weekend or next I will be out there with the pruners and the grass shears, giving the ornamental grasses and siberian iris their annual haircuts.   

The hellebores before their spring 'haircut.'

  {picture after tidy}

I'm hoping for blooms on my hellebores.  These were purchased three years ago, from White Flower Farm, and I have been very patient... but the anticipation is killing me.  Last year I got all excited when I saw new growth, only to have it be the season's foliage coming up.

I bought from White Flower because their picture looked so lovely, and I liked the color mix.  I only bought three plants, I am anxious to see what colors the lottery has delivered.  Hoping for three different ones, that would be very nice.  I'd much rather buy my plants locally and in bloom, as I tend to be fussy about details like color, but haven't found any yet. Their season is long before the regionally traditional Mother's Day start of the garden season for the local nurseries and box stores... and when I do find them, I'm sure it will be a tight money week and I will have to pass them by, isn't that how it goes?

This is the time of year that I get the late fallen leaves out of the borders, so that the bulbs can see the light and shine!  One year I had tulips that had pushed their way up through the heavy popular leaves only to bear these up as they grew.  When I tried to pull the dead leaves off, I broke the brittle tulip foliage.  Sigh.  I don't have good luck with tulips. Ask my mother, who let me help weed her garden at age five.  She very carefully pointed out the leaves to stay, and I didn't touch a single daffodil.   Poor mom.  No tulips for you, either. 

I managed to miss the window for pruning trees this winter.  Mark wanted to skip this year, as we did a heavy prune on the red apple last year, but I still intended to do my shaping cuts on the front maples and check the interferences between the back oak and the green apple.  Oh well.  I may yet do some pruning, but it can wait.   It can wait.

Spring.  Hurry up!