There's a unicorn in the garden, eating the lilies.

[truepenny]

I went out and inspected the yard today, to see how we were doing after the ravages of winter. Everything I planted last summer seems to be alive; the irises are putting out green shoots, the hydrangeas have tiny brave green leaves, and the Cerise Bouquet roses, sullen as roses are wont to be, nonetheless are visibly Not Dead. The Grandfathered Rosebush is also Not Dead, although even more sullen, and the Anthropophagous Rosebush is reaching greedily for the sidewalk again. (This is one of the ways we know it's anthropophagous.) I also appreciate the daffodils and crocuses we inherited with the house in a far more proprietary way than has heretofore been the case. (Last summer, it seems like somebody flipped a switch in my head. It's now MY yard instead of something I'm not allowed to mess with because the real owner will be coming back any time now. Hi. Welcome to my head.)

I dragged the huge branch that fell off one of the juniper trees in our big December snowstorm back behind the garage; pruned some deadwood off the roses; cleared several small strips of clear plastic, a food drive flyer, and a Jehovah's Witnesses' pamphlet out of the yard; uprooted the evergreen sprigs that seem to think we need a hedge along the front sidewalk; despaired over the state of the parkway; raked last year's detritus out of the odd little bed between the back door and the cyclone door where the ferns thrive like thriving things; cut down two saplings ditto; and cleared the grass back from the faux-brick stepping stones between the garage and the house.

It's still a post-winter mess, but that's what March is for. And the crocuses are purple and valiant.

Comments

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Every year I intend to plant autumn crocus (crocus sativa, the saffron crocus) and every year I never get around to it (probably because one is supposed to plant them earlier than they are available in the garden centers). THIS year, however, I am taking apart the raised bed that used to be a struggling garden and got taken over by the golden raspberries. Dammit. Not sure what I am putting in its place, but it is Going Away.

Want some Golden Summit raspberries? I have lots.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Yes, rather.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

I have relations and other commitments in Wisconsin, so I could actually drop some off on one of the trips through. Getting them to CT would be a little harder. ;-)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I had that mental thing with the yard, too. The first summer we were here, every branch I pruned from our bushes, I kept expecting someone to charge out and say, "You damn kids! You leave that alone!"

[coffeeem.livejournal.com]

Yep, the best you can get out of the garden in March is Stark. Messy is the far more common condition.

[fidelioscabinet.livejournal.com]

A friend has what must be a relative of your Anthropophagous Rosebush. It is under the impression that her beside-the-street mailbox is really a trellis. which had led to great consternation, distress, and even angst on the part of the mailpeople who cover that route.

She has considered flamethrowers.

[grass-angel.livejournal.com]

Did you ever have a Jehova's Witness come to the door or did the Anthrophagous Rosebush eat them before they could get that far?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

The Anthropophagous Rosebush is (sadly for it) on the wrong side of the house to eat visitors, delivery persons, and random passersby. We have a concrete path around one side of the house--I call it a sidewalk for lack of a better word--and the A.R. menaces the back corner.