The Harbinger of spring

Happy Spring greetings to all my gardening friends whom I missed so much back in PBrose forum. I wanted to go in the other day to get Rachel's mail as I missed her, but the moment I saw Mr.H name queueing up the page, I made a u-turn click and hope one day Rachel will just google me up and find this blog.
Sometimes I hated myself for being so bleeding straight and unable to act. I will never make it to Hollywood, I can tell you that. Not even as a lamp post. Forget about getting all dressed up for the glitzy oscar night!!

I hope you all are getting very excited with the harbingers of spring that's popping up everywhere in our northern hemisphere. My pot proliferation has increased over the winter months but those bareroots roses will soon go into the big planter and the pots will go back to hosting annuals and sweet basil which the slugs will come by the bus load and feast on them.

I haven't done anything in the garden so far, other than walking around and enjoying the signs of life coming back after the winter hibernation. We have had a couple hours of sun but it is so windy and still quite cold. The upper layer of the ground is crumbly and nice but half way the spade it is still frozen. The next couple of days will be bad weather. Sleet is forecasted. Yikes.
Last autumn, Mrs. Spade had worked so hard trying to uproot a very stubborn clump of wild dogwood and bramble roots.
There are some hair line cracks in the handle, so...before I break another one I decided to get Miss Spade joining the garden assault team line-up. Miss spade is really feminine, light weight and definitely will put less strain on my upper body but it is a little short for my height.

The typical late winter/early spring up and down temperatures made me a bit confused how many layers of clothings I have to put on every morning, but the usual percursors to spring seemed oblivious to the uncertainties. For someone like me, after a long winter wait, bored and tense, the arrival of Viburnum Bodnantense Schneeball blooms was welcomed with cutting bunches of them to perfume the indoor.

I thought about Maribel as I circle the shrub with the secateurs.

The sky changes from hour to hour. Some times cloudy, then its blue sky, then its sunny...... then its cloudy again

Winter Jasmin Nudiflorum. So sunny bright yellow against blue sky. That should give you a rough idea how it can get when the clouds are moved away......

My page format has gone a bit skew-whiff.....must be the weather.... blown about in the strong wind...

OK you girls, whatever the weather, enjoy your spring!!