Below, a very short video, answering the question I posed a while back, as to who’d be using the treehole for a nesting site this year.

My mother gave me this yellow primrose (a red one too) when I moved to my present house, ten years ago. That’s not even how old it is, having lived however long before I got it. So, if you’ve got some rocks to plant your primroses among, you’ll find them some of the most reliable and long-lived perennials.

My yard is full of violets, one of the nicest things to see in the springtime, when they bloom in swaths. The leaves will also stay green even in a drought. All the more mystery why anyone would want a chemically green lawn, instead of a beautiful meadow. Photographing violets doesn’t work on bright sunny days. You need a good overcast sky to get the colors to show true.

This is the time of year when caring for the seedlings gets laborious (a little). They can’t spend the night outside, both for temperatures and creature interference. So, for a week or two, I have to carry them out, set them up, carry them back inside, repeat… But they need wind and natural light as soon as possible, when they get to the potting on stage. Hardening off is not just to get them ready for the garden, but because a little pot of soil won’t keep them fed well enough when they’re really growing. Wind gets the root and leaf systems respirating properly, and sunlight cranks up the photosynthesis.