Spring...

 

I didn't keep close track of online weather maps this week, but I'm thinking most of the Midwest saw spring storms on Wednesday.  High temperatures here made for instability in the weather when the winds finally blew in the rain. Tornadoes were sighted all around the Indianapolis area, and south of us, but on our little spot on the map we woke up yesterday morning to a freshly washed landscape and hardly any tree debris on the ground.

Bradford Pear blossoms

While the forecast predicts a welcomed cool down though most of next week, it is undeniably spring here.  White-blossomed Bradford Pear (which is, I'm sad to say, an invasive at this point) now dot the landscape along the highways.  Sprinkled amongst them are redbud trees, and all kinds of other trees just beginning to leaf out.  

Everything here is growing fast! Sedum, daylilies, irises, clematis, daffodils, forsythia, garlic, onions...  

Sedum, last week🠝 and today🠟

~~~~

Daylilies a week ago🠝 and today🠟

~~~~

Iris growth a week ago🠝

Irises today🠟

~~~~

This Clematis will soon be looking gorgeous.

Forsythia's bloom is about finished, though.

As are the daffodils, I suspect.

Garlic planted in the fall is looking good!

And walking onions planted from the 

bulbils of last year's onions are thriving.

And it looks like we'll have peaches again this year!

Once this rain is over (early next week) I plan to uncover the strawberry plants and take stock of that situation.  I am eager to see if my thinning them out last autumn will have an impact on their production and strawberry size in a couple of months.

I'm not quite ready to throw myself into spring's outdoor work, but hopefully that's just inertia tugging at me to be lazy.  I still have time to think about it. With all the rain we've had, it will take a while for the soil to dry enough to work it, anyway.

Meanwhile, with more consistently warmer temps, I've set myself up again in the sunroom to stitch on my never-ending cross stitch sampler.  It's a great front-row seat for the annual spring show accompanied by birdsong.