70F+ today!

A day that started with a sweat suit, ended with a tank top and shorts. I'm doing my spring outdoor cleaning, downstate. I sure wish that I was up north at the cabin. My gardens up there certainly need cleaning up too. They will probably have to wait until spring, unless I get the urge to clean the gardens under cold weather conditions...which I have also been known to do. Anyway, with the weather being warm, I decided last night that I needed to do a good garden cleaning...the kind that I do in the springtime. My hosta's have to have several days of frost weather to kill them down enough so that I wouldn't be taking their last bit of food from their leaves. Several of my other plants could use a good cleaning to take on the winter weather. I've got Bill to promise that he will leaf blow tonight after he gets home from work, tee hee. Oh, and I'm working on a FANTASTIC recipe for dinner tonight, which I'm hoping will become part of my cabin repertoire. Here is what I started with today in the gardens, I'll show 'after' pics tomorrow:

Sargentina Crab Apple, which is 10+ years old, it needs pruned because some of the branches are hanging close to the ground. But, we don't dare prune it until spring, or we may kill it because it will work at healing itself. Too much stress for the winter yet to come.

Hosta garden, this area holds some very pricey and hard to find hosta. They have taken a few hits with frost which should make it pretty easy to clean up. I'll clean it up as best as possible.

Fence line, lots of things to be cleaned up and cut back here. I pay special attention to those plants that cannot handle cutting back at this time of year. I'll clean up anything that can.