Friday, May 17, 2013

Spring Is Finally Here!

Without any enormous painting jobs hanging over my head, I feel a real sense of freedom to goof off and have fun.  We have an annual all-town tag sale and Historic Society huge book sale in April and my sister and I had fun checking everything out.  I've also been snapping pictures of beautiful spring-flowering shrubs, trees and flowers.
Lovely old Greek Revival house around the corner.

Forsythia bordering my neighbor to the north.  Love this color.


A beautiful flowering cherry tree down the road.


Tulips at Elizabeth Park.
Gorgeousness.  I love red tulips.
Grape and regular hyacinth in front of the wisteria.
Cute little violas self-sown from last year.
Parrot tulips.
The wisteria survived the porch re-roofing.
It seems our cold winter really helped the flowers.  The peonies are loaded with buds and tulips bloomed that hadn't in several years.  The wisteria and lilacs had a decent year as well.

Happy Spring!

5 comments:

alissa said...

How do you keep your wisteria in check? Are you constantly battling it? Our neighbor has one over their pergola, but I'm constantly attacking shoots that are trying to come into our yard.

We are planning on putting up a pergola sometime this summer over our patio and would like extra shade from a vine. I like that wisteria is fast, low maintenance, and only blooms once a year (instead of all summer attracting lots of bees). But I'm so afraid of planting a beast I can't control (like my neighbor did).

Do you have any thoughts or suggestions?

Durf said...

Hey Alissa!
Your house and yard are looking fantastic.

I hate to say it but it's kind of a pain. It grows so fast that it has to be trimmed constantly. Plus, if you don't it won't bloom well the next year. The final pruning has to be done at just the right time (up here it's the end of September) or it won't flower in the spring.

It also self-sows all over the place. I spotted one in my back yard last week! However, I don't want to get rid of it because of its age. I might, though, when I get my porch re-done this summer and the railings are installed.

Maybe a grapevine would be better. I don't know if they're as invasive. My neighbors' vine climbed up the ten-foot stone wall into my garden but I was able to pull it up relatively easily and it didn't grow back.

alissa said...

Thank you! I didn't realize they self-sow like that. I don't want to have to battle my own wisteria mistake and my neighbor's. Yours just looks so beautiful I had to check. I'll definitely keep looking for another vine then - I'll add grapes to my list to research! Thank you for your help!

An Urban Cottage said...

That Greek Revival is amazing!

Pretty flowers too.

Durf said...

Yeah, there are some beauties around the corner. I hope to feature some of them in future posts. I really enjoyed your posts when you featured neighborhoods, Steve.