Hallson Gardens

I know that in some parts of the country the record snowfall will make for a miserable mud season (also known as spring). I'm never really ready for the mud, but I do have some old shoes ready to get dirty!

This spring I am most looking forward to seeing the double bloodroot that Mary gave us a few years ago. It has the most amazing flowers I've ever seen, but alas, they last one or two days. This year I vow to get a picture! I'm also looking forward to seeing the jack in the pulpits.

What are you looking forward to seeing this mud season?

Fiddleheads for me. I have a few kinds of ferns and each of them has a different fiddlehead. They fascinate me and I always look forward to seeing them.
Gloria

I always looked forward to the crocus and daffafdills and the haze of green when you looked out over a landscape of trees. I also looked forward to the sounds of songbirds.

I hadn't thought about sounds, but the sounds of frogs are always welcoming to me too

We live in a valley that lies SE of the Great Lakes and typically get tons of snow and very little sun during winter. I've read that we are historically rated 2nd in the country for getting the least amount of sun in the month of February.

I'm looking forward to being OUTDOORS again! and seeing some SUN!!!! in the garden or on the golf course.

Can't wait to see how many flowers this will have:

Mud season....one of the reasons that I always hesitate when someone asks what my favorite season is. It would typically be spring, but then the thought of the mud appears in my mind, and I usually say 'autumn' as a reflex reaction. The mud here on the farm can be a real challenge.
Once I get past the dread of the mud, there is so much to anticipate. I love to hear the redwing blackbirds trilling when they make their appearance, which is typically a litlte earlier than the robins. I always look forward to the bloodroot, though I don't have the double variety. We have them growing on a part of the farm, and I moved some to the yard years ago. Now I have a couple of nice patches of them. When the virginia bluebells (mertensia virginica) bloom, then I know it's really spring. Sometimes the daffodils lie.
Linda P

New leaves on the trees, hosta eyes popping up, spotted fawns, hawks soaring overhead, the smell of spring, the SUN!!!
I have to say, this Saturday was the perfect spring like day in OK. Temps were up around 65, there was no wind to speak of and the ground was dry I stayed outside ALL day long, it was wonderful

G

Offers showing up in the mailbox, that's what
i look forward to.

For example,I received Schreiner's 2010 catalogue a few days ago showing
this beauty as its cover girl.



TB Twilight Rapture

It's available for a measly $75.00. The temptation to be the first on the
block to have one is tough, let me tell ya.

Chris_W wrote:I hadn't thought about sounds, but the sounds of frogs are always welcoming to me too

I have a funny story about frog singing. My husband and I took a spring vacation to a secluded spot in Door County, WI (the "thumb" of Wisconsin's mitten shape). We are accustomed to small town life--streetlights, occasional traffic sounds, etc. We're certainly not urban dwellers, but we're not really woodsy people, either.

Up in Door County, however, we were in a very quiet place with a large patch of woods and a small boggy pond right behind our cabin. We were enjoying the seclusion, but we were surprised by just how dark it was without a streetlight to be found, nor a car to be heard. Still, it wasn't quiet by any stretch. The frogs in the bog were singing a full-on Hallelujah Chorus, so we decided to throw open the patio doors and listen to them as we went to sleep.

They were incredibly loud. Almost too loud. But we kept lying there in the blackness telling ourselves, and one another, how much we were enjoying the sounds of nature.

Then, suddenly, the frogs just...stopped...singing. The silence was deafening. And eerie. And the darkness was total.

I stiffened, and I felt my husband tense beside me in bed, too. And then I heard his voice, small and quavering, say, "Why did the little frogs stop singing....?"

I replied, "I don't know, but it's feakingmeout!"

We ended up closing the patio door, digging a fan out of the closet and turning it on to drown out the noise, and leaving a small light on in the kitchen. We never figured out why the frogs stopped singing (and one by one they started up again), but I was envisioning something out of a Stephen King novel and my husband was sure he'd see lights from an alien spacecraft any minute. Of course, it was probably a deer or something tramping through the woods that caused them to pause.

So, what am I looking forward to this spring? Hosta eyes. Seeing my first-year woodland plants and other perennials become second-year plants. Watching the daffodils bloom. Listening to birds singing.

And even enjoying frog song...from a safe distance.

Hi Chris et al,

In my area of Ontario, we seem to be skipping the mud season and going right to spring! (But all that could change.) My favourite part about this time of year is the daily inspections on the garden to see what is coming up. I have crocuses, daffodils and muscari poking up in my sunnier spots.

Another thing I really look forward to is the sounds of the geese coming back and the frogs!

All the best, Diane

"Mud Season" I always called this "Ugly Time" . . . everything is brown, all the dead the foliage that was covered by snow in the winter is now exposed. Everything is mushy and muddy, tracking everywhere. Even worse, it's too early to get out there and start cleaning up because we are still likely to have frost/freeze nights. So we just have to put up with ugly for a while.

What do I look forward to?

-- Hearing the sound of birds in the morning! It happens so suddenly, just this week I noticed the chirping in the morning. Saw my first robins last week.

-- Walking around the yard a noticing new green sprouts. The tulips and iris grow a couple inches every day. Buds swelling on the magnolia.

-- Patches of lawn greening up!

-- Waving hello to neighbors and exercise walkers who are finally getting outside again.

Viktoria, that double trillium is beautiful. Thanks for sharing that one!

And Diane, like you I think we have mostly bypassed mud season too. The frost came out of the ground much quicker than usual, so when we got our first spring rains it drained right through. Normally we have huge ruts in the driveway, yet when we had a semi-truck here the other day the driveway stayed put. Not that I'm still not tracking some dirt through the house (picture me as Pigpen most of the time) it isn't as bad as usual

The birds are definitely getting louder in the morning. This morning at 6am as I was leaving work I was amazed at the sound the birds were making. And the night before while leaving for work I could hear the frogs

Happy to see spring - yes I can call it spring now, since it isn't a normal mud season here.

Of course, now we can look forward to tick season

Now officially the wettest year on record here, so mud season is going to last a LONG time!

Chris, when I was working horses and needed to step into the house for a minute I would tie grocery bags on my feet, get what I needed and take them off at the door before going back out. Looked like a fool, but it kept the mud off the floors and was faster then taking off the shoes and putting them back on.

Spider, what a good idea. I wish I could get DH to do that when he comes in from the cowbarn. He usually takes off his boots, but yesterday he came tromping in the deck door to give me the newspaper. He had the boots on...they were 'clean'....meaning he had shuffled through the grass to clean off the bottom. Stuff up the side doesn't count.
We've had a terribly long mud season this year. Our road has been closed since March 15, and should have been closed a week earlier.
Linda P