A Good News, Bad News Post

1.  Good news:  One year of Weight Watchers and I have lost so much weight that none of last years summer clothes fit.

Bad news:  See above.

This morning I went through my closet to find some light-weight pants to wear to the local garden store.  I pulled out four pairs of pants before I found a pair that wasn't way too big.   Even those that I had altered in the early fall are too big.  I hate to shop.  But unless I am going to go around looking like a hip-hop artist with my waistband around my lower hips, I must make the effort.  I guess it could be worse.  I could be buying even larger clothes instead of smaller ones.

2.  Good news:  Spring has finally arrived.  Bad news:  So have the mosquitoes.

I saw a cute pin on Pinterest that asked Noah why he didn't leave the two mosquitoes to the flood.  The back corner of my lot that stays wet is the only area where I have a problem right now, but I am sure that will change as the season goes on.  I wish I could remember what I used last year to treat the patio side of the house.  It worked, but I have no idea what it was.

3.  Good news:  Some of my plants absolutely loved that polar winter.

Bad news:  Some of my plants got pretty badly damaged by animals gnawing and frost killing of buds.

Lily-of-the-valley, columbine, coral bells, and daylilies are all thriving.  And the peonies have never been this tall and with so many buds.  Even last years divisions are popping.  The ostrich fern is growing everywhere, including where I don't want it, like in the middle of juniper bushes.  It doesn't appear that any perennial flowers were lost.

I did lose some perennial grasses.  My large zebra grass did not come back.  I went out in spring to see it covered in powdery mildew.  Yuck.  I also lost my very large maiden grass and the switch grass growing near it.  But I am pretty sure that damage was from voles.  I think they just decimated the root system.  I had my garden helper dig them out and I planted some zucchini.  I am already thinking of chocolate zucchini bread.

I had to cut all of my roses to the ground.  Last year was the first time in almost ten years that I did not wrap my plants in burlap.  Wouldn't you know that it would be the worst winter ever.  Fortunately they are all coming back and are already in bud.  And there will be no flowers on the oak-leafed hydrangea as they were all killed by frost, but the plant looks very happy even if two feet shorter than last year.

I lost a ton of cotoneaster.  It was all chewed up.  Same thing happened back in 2007.  There were branches that had several feet of nothing and then green tips.  Here is the first week's worth of cutback.

Multiply that by three.  This week I am putting out all the die-back on some old cranberry viburnum.  I'll be very glad when all this pruning is done.

4.  Good news:  I survived my first week of baby-sitting my grandson.

Bad news:  Ah, well, I really can't think of any.  It's been a long time since I had a baby in the house.  My youngest child is 33.  But there is nothing as comforting as holding a baby, especially a sleeping baby.  And there is only a small window of time when we can do that.  As soon as they find they can crawl they do not want to be still.  So, I plan to enjoy every moment of sitting and doing nothing with him.

And after this week-end of gardening, sitting and holding Charlie is going to be just what the doctor ordered.