Spring in the Bluegrass

Well, I guess it's finally "spring" here in the Bluegrass.  It's only 56 degrees out, but with the sun it's certainly warm enough to work outside.  We had a total of about 5 inches of snow all winter, and I don't think that temps dropped below 0 all winter.  But still, people around here were complaining about what a long, hard winter we had.  Then I tell them about Caribou, Maine, and I don't hear any more.

We can expect some nice warm days, which will send all the flowering trees and shrubs into a frenzy of blossoming, leaves will emerge, and it will look and feel like spring.

Then, about the middle of April, we usually have one more killing frost.  That's why, after 10 years, we have yet to pick a single peach, nectarine or plum off our trees, and why for one night, every cotton sheet in the house ends up out in the garden to cover everything we can cover.

This may be the last year we even try to grow fruit on the trees.  We're both getting older, and they physical labor it takes, to say nothing of the expense of protecting from bugs (we MUST spray here or the bugs will get everything), if we don't get something this year, the trees are either coming down or we're not going to bother any more, and will just let them grow.

Our forsythia is blooming, as are others along our road -- ours always seems to be the last to blossom fully.  We should probably prune this shrub, but I think I like it naturalized.  Our neighbors have several they have pruned into round shapes, and they are beautiful, but ours looks more like the picture, and I think that's the way I like it..

The Bradford and Cleveland pear trees are blossoming.  One can see their white plumage all over the place, which is kind of unfortunate, as the Kentucky biology powers that be have declared both trees to be noxious invaders, and they urge everyone who has them to cut them down and destroy them.  I'm not sure what it is that makes them so bad but they do, as I understand it, upset the natural ecosystem, as invasive plants are wont to do.  They are fragile, and with much wind at all, they break -- we lost one totally in 2009, and the other has been seriously damaged twice; next time, it's coming down totally.

https://www.southernliving.com/garden/grumpy-gardener/i-just-hate-bradford-pear

The Eastern Redbuds are not quite out yet, but in another week, their almost iridescent purple-red buds will be spring from the bark all over the trees.  Yes, the flowers grow right out of the bark, and when in full bloom, one can't tell there is actually a tree there -- the flowers just seem to float in mid-air.  And it's not that they are showy like the pears, or the dogwoods (which won't be out for a few more weeks), so one can actually see them on the roadsides and yet almost NOT see them.  I think they're my favorite tree.

So far, that's about it for our significant flowering plants.  In another month, all of them will be green like everything else, but for awhile, they are colorful and enjoyable.