Laughing Ravens

 Most gardeners have a pretty solid understanding of which flowers bloom first. Expectations, you might say. For some, those first flowers come in the form of bulbs. But which ones? Like I said before, it is a slippery slope. This tulip was planted by a squirrel or chipmunk. In the lawn. Decades ago. the one, single, lonely tulip that we never planted   But then the bulbs start to transition into the early perennials and shrubs start to push up or leaf out. By the time the weather warms up, the rain stops, and the bugs come out... it is time for everything to suddenly become magically green. It can be an intoxicating green-ness, until the neighbor's mower shatters the reverie. Nothing ruins the daydream sunshine quite like the smell of exhaust and the roar of the lawnmower.    Purple smokebush, Cotinus coggygria 'Royal Purple' I try to get outside early in the morning. Before the sun, but after the birds. The birds get up absurdly early. The frogs stay up late partyi...

  What the heck is this?  Anyone who knows me would agree that organization is NOT my strong suit. Curiosity, absolutely. When May rolls around (and in April too!) and I start looking at signs of new growth in the garden, one of the first things I say is: "What the heck is this?" Sounds funny when I write it that way, because as anyone who has been around me for five minutes knows, there's a whole lot of profanity left out of that question. Why is this an issue and why should anyone care? Organization is a very personal thing... on the same level of personal as what happens behind the bathroom door. Organization is what separates everything (see what I did there?).  Years ago, when I first started gardening, I could remember all the names of all the plants I put in the ground. My neighbor, Marge, told me the name as I stuck the cuttings into the South Florida sand/dirt and that was that. The plant grew. The name was the name. Done. Then I got old. I gardened in lots of di...