Get Outside!

That's what I've been saying to myself since yesterday ... get outside! The sun is shining, it's warm and still. It's perfect weather, plus Adam and I have absolutely no where else to go. Yard work time! Here's what's blooming in the yard:

 The last of the daffodils ~

 The Japanese magnolia. You see below how the early blooms were zapped by frost, but the remaining ones are glorious.

 Our lemon and lime trees, coming out of winter hibernation on the front porch:

 My Lady Banks Rose is spreading out like crazy. I want it fuller - a huge mass of blooms like the one I loved so much at our house in Statesville.

 hyacinth:

 vinca:

 a mysterious, wild, and quite annoying rose-type vine:

Adam has planned to rework the front foliage border of our property this spring. Our house is really close to a 2-lane state highway. Over 4 years ago, he dug some weed trees from elsewhere on the property and put them across the front of the property as a noise and privacy barrier. Then we added a row of Knock-Out rose bushes. Then we stuck some elaeagnus (oleaster) shrubs up there too, for good measure. It was crowded. Today he began hacking out those weed trees. Photos of the carnage:

 Swamp myrtles going away -

 An awful crepe myrtle that the power company hacked off will also be leaving:

 These two bushes: camellia (foreground) and a cedar of some sort (background), both died from hurricane drowning. They'll be leaving too.

 In two years, the elaeagnus has gone crazy! We'll pin some of the longer branches to the ground with bricks, and they'll start new plants there. Eventually we'll have a true elaeagnus hedge with roses in front of it.