Is it spitting snow where you live?  All Fairfax County afterschool buses have been canceled today.  I'm hoping the snow doesn't amount to much, and I would like to see it warm up a tad, so I can imagine spring being here soon.

I went for a walk Monday with my youngest daughter & was surprised to see that the daffodils had sprouted so high.  Another tell tale sign that spring is quickly coming is that I've seen many landscaping crews out cleaning up yards & spreading mulch.

I got the mailings out last week for the membership renewals & have already started to receive them back.  Thank you.  I'll be working on getting your membership cards back to you.  (For me, today is definitely another inside day with temps in the 30's with winds gusting around the 20's.)

Has everyone had as much rain as we've had here in Reston?  Dog Run overflowed & the dry ponds have filled up.  I'm glad we got some rain tho as I know it had started to get a little dry around here.

I've been up to lots since my last entry.  I have pruned my roses & I've almost gotten my Mills Magic worked into the soil around them all.  Hopefully that will be done in a day or two.  I still need to get them sprayed & I need to get the lawn fertilized.  Then we'll work on the mulch issue.  We never did get around to mulching last year.

I have some sad news...when I uncovered some of my roses that I had under the deck I found that some annoying animal (probably a vole) had eaten a bunch of my roses.  I probably lost 10-15 roses (this included my seedlings), but the really sad ones were my Magic Lantern & my Vera Dalton.

Yikes already time to go & pick up my kids....

The Rose Show program will be printed this week.  Please read the dedication :)  I also uploaded it to the web site,  but caution for users with a slow connection.  It is a booklet & takes abit to download.

The ARF Calendar on our web site has been updated.

I've managed to cultivate in the first round of Mills Magic on all the roses.  I've noticed that the aphids and rose slugs are already after them, which means the thrips & the mites are right behind.  I've managed to get one spraying in, but should already do another as blackspot had already reared its ugly head, yup always alittle behind.

My daughters new garden actually received some mulch yesterday, that hopefully means that more mulch is on the way!

We put lawn patch out yesterday & realized that we needed to fix 4 heads on the sprinkler system.  (You can't grow new lawn without water)  After we got that down & were checking the lines realized that we have 2 more broken.  We don't understand it as it was supposedly an easy winter????

I've already got some roses blooming.  I noticed my climber - Shot Silk, my polyanthas - Leonie Lamesch & Lady Ann Kidwell & my rugosa - Wildberry Breeze are already starting to bloom.

My oldest daughter is in a play 3 days this week - I can't wait as I haven't seen it at all yet.  I'll definitely be taking pictures.

enuf blogging...back to work.

I thought May was supposed to be warmer & less windy.   NOT in my yard.  I have had to retie so many climbers (& I have to admit some of the long canes I have just hacked back).  Today I'll be able to continue spring cleanup activities.

Even though I've been thwarted by the wind & rain, my roses haven't been.  I have so many roses starting to bloom and because of all this rain & cooler weather it appears that I may have a bloom cycle without those nasty thrips & mites.  We'll see.....

We've been fortunate to have a bluebird family in one of our birdhouses this spring & I've been enjoying watching the parents.  Today, was the first day that the babies pitched a fit & demanded food when I walked by, much to the chagrin of the parents.  I normally walk by the house as though it is invisible but today I couldn't resist peeking in.  I stand way back & stand on my tippy toes to see those little hungry mouths.  So cool.

Interestingly, I found a baby bird (don't know which kind) in one of our fountains.  I can't imagine how it got there.  It was definitely too young to fly & there are no branches over the fountain for it to tumble out into it.  Could a hawk have picked it up & dropped it?  Did it die first & then the parents were housecleaning?  Weird.

Oh yes & then my sad robin story.  One of my climbers broke its tie & the cane 1/2 fell down.   As I was perusing the damage I saw a mother robin sitting on her 1 remaining egg.  On the ground it appeared she had lost 2 or 3 eggs.  Her nest was at a precarious angle and of course I thought propping the cane back up would make her happy.   I so carefully pushed the cane back up & got it tied without the remaining egg falling out & without disturbing the nest whatsoever.  She watched me from another tree (of course squawking at me).   I left & didn't bother her at all, but she never came back.

Time to go do some work!