Garden Time: When Will This Cold Weather END?

Well, the calendar says that it's Spring now, but the cold and rainy weather persists here in the Pacific Northwest.

Certainly, we do have a few signs of spring. A couple of dwarf daffodils I put in the ground last fall are actually flowering, adding a little color to our otherwise pretty dead looking garden space.

So far, most of our gardening efforts have focused on cleaning out beds and cutting back bushes and shrubs that had a lot of dead bits on them.

For example, one of the front beds towards the street has long been a bit of an eyesore:

So we decided to not only get rid of the dead stuff from the top, but we also thoroughly dug through everything and removed a lot of very dense roots that would have created a whole new set of weeds, this year.

Once removed, we laid down brown paper to block new growth from below and then added a layer of bark mulch on top. Here, we're almost done with the process:

There was actually a quite nice holly bush there, which we saved. Later in the year, we hope to add some flowering sage, which tends to be pretty safe against our neighborhood herd of deer... which pretty much eat everything.

On the positive news front, a rose bush we weren't sure whether had died over the winter is showing signs of life:

We're quite happy to see this, given that it is a very pretty pink rose with a lovely scent. We had lots of blooms last year, but there was some kind of blight on it in the early fall and it looked like it was not doing well, at all.

This was the pink rose in July of last year:

Next week, we'll be starting into work on cleaning up the back yard from winter... unless the weather suddenly gets a lot warmer and sunny. But that's not in any of the weather forecasts... sadly.

Making this post #club5050 in keeping with community guidelines!

Till the next, thank you for visiting! All photos are my own, usually taken in nature, or around our property.