There is nothing quite like the satisfaction of a gentle, lamb-like spring easing into summer. The world reborn, brown changed into green, rainbows all over the landscape. Crocus yielding to forsythia bowing to redbud and magnolias, ceding to viburnums. Peonies budding up to be the next star in the garden beds. The feel of warm sunshine on skin, the smell of damp earth stirred by fingers, the cold undulations of disturbed earthworms in turned soil. Sore muscles unused from winter, aching rough hands, and a tired gardener each night. Yes, there is nothing like a good spring.
Spring continues here in full force, best evidenced by the fantastic bloom this year of our purple wisteria, a mere generic Wisteria sinensis, but a pleasant surprise for Mrs. ProfessorRoush when she discovered it. She told ProfessorRoush she liked the fragrance of his yellow wisteria more, causing some confusion on his part since he doesn't have any yellow wisteria and had never heard of the existence of yellow wisteria. As it turned out, Mrs. ProfessorRoush was confusing the name "wisteria" with "forsythia," further confusing ProfessorRoush because he doesn't remember his forsythia having much fragrance. Ah, the perplexities of long marriages of dissimilar interests.Still further confusion ensued later, when intrigued, I decided to search the internet for yellow wisteria. There are fabulous pictures everywhere on the internet of bright yellow pendulous blooms labeled Yellow Chinese Wisteria (which I want lusted for instantly), and offers for seed from any number of irreputable sources, but no descriptions of yellow wisteria from either more scientific sources or offers of grown plants by reputable nursery wholesalers. Wisteria, I maintain, likely only comes in white, lavenders and blues, and offers to purchase seed for the mystical yellow forsythia are likely hoaxes, but I'm happy to be educated if I'm wrong.
I've stayed busy in the garden this week. One major project for me this year is to mulch many of the beds with straw. For years, I have mulched most of my larger garden with lawn clippings, but because of all the dust I raised last summer during mowing, which continued into the first mowing this year, I think this year the lawn needs the clippings more than the garden beds. Maybe a year's worth of thatch will begin to restore my prairie. Besides, don't the lilacs look happy at the anticipation of far more moisture conservation and cooler soils from me than they've know in the past? I think so. That 4 inches of packed straw will eliminate any weeding this year and maybe the next in this bed. One bed down, six to go. 
