Spring cleaning

Spring garden cleanup is quite a chore no matter how well you prepare in the fall.  Where the hell do all the leaves come from? Shrubbery and the dead aerial portions of perennial plants are terrific leaf grabbers.  The high temp today will be in the upper 60s and the predicted rain looks to be heading more easterly while still south of us, so TPP will spend the day doing some garden cleanup. Gently removing the accumulated leaves from among the hellebores will be job number one. The flower buds have really begun to push up through the leaves, but things will look much better and the plants will flower better without the smothering covering of leaves. Before the cleanup is done, the Phactors will probably fill 10-12 of those large paper lawn waste bags for composted recycling by the city.  It was also windy yesterday, so today there will have to be some policing of the estate to pick up limbs also for city recycling as wood mulch. Buds on snow trillium (Trillium nivale), a very small native to local woodlands, but not common is showing color. As are the yellow flower buds of Cornus mas.  Such warm temps will push things along quite quickly, and some not so early flowering shrubs are showing swollen flower buds, e.g., pearl bushes.  So why with so much work to do, is TPP blogging instead of raking?  It requires some planning and at least one more cup of coffee.  All good gardeners know this.