I could tell this morning, when the birds were louder than the chuckle and siss of my coffee maker, that spring has sprung officially and certainly, no doubt about it. It even seemed almost a little easier to bounce out of bed this morning. Now that the forsythia is in full bloom I think it’s time to really pay attention or the next thing you know it’ll be mid-summer! Do you have color associations for the different phases of the seasons? Spring, to me, is a bright yellow and light greenish feathery time and then there’s an early summer shift to pale blue. It seemed like a lot of people walking the property today were in my early summer color – there’s a lot of blue going on and I don’t think everyone was decked out for our superstar garden and archives volunteer, Mary – or maybe they were! We, the staff, and a few volunteers definitely were. Here’s all of us wearing blue. We love you, Mary!

I’m not sure what happened to the lull I mentioned last week – it’s over and we’re already in 4th gear revved to full speed ahead. We started moving some of Dick’s and our vegetables outside to harden off and yesterday the Rockettes deadheaded the hydrangeas by the summer house and Gail and Joel and I started moving shrubs and the last few perennials out of the Idea Beds. (More on the Idea Bed redesign later.) We also planted out the foxgloves we babied in the greenhouse over the winter and helped the Florabundas cut back the old liriope leaves in the bed by the Moongate. If the days weren’t so beautiful our crews might have complained bitterly about their hydrangea and liriope chores being like deadheading the Coryopsis ‘Moonbeam’ – which if you’ve ever attempted that task you know it’s tedious-ridiculous-endless. We don’t have any ‘Moonbeam’ in the gardens anymore…

And I can’t leave out the daffodil report. It’s so close to peak I’m calling it pretty nearly peak. The next couple of days are forecasted stunners and I think that the buds that are poised to open might just have to pop. We still think full and total peak will occur this weekend and into and beyond next week as long as the weather cooperates. Keep an eye on the forecast and please come through whenever you can!