Wow, blogging fail for me this spring.  In addition to it being effing cold and miserable out well into April, other projects and preoccupations kind of took over.  Highlights in this post, to be followed by a few picture posts.

* One lesson learned: the seeds really do need to be somewhere that jumps to my attention in my daily routine, because after a promising start in the downstairs storage closet with a timer on the lights, I forgot all about them and they dried out and died.  ARGH.

* Plant sale was glorious as ever. Mostly bought irises, since looking at pictures of the yellow one in the front bed all winter convinced me that I need many more of them. Also picked up some stinking hellebores - they don't really stink, god knows why they called them that - since I have been eyeing their lovely foliage for ever; some white-flowering opuntias; and a dwarf korean fir. Got my mother-in-law a moon frost hemlock and now I want one too. Am getting to be a real sucker for dwarf evergreens.

* Insect plagues seem somewhat reduced from last year - there's the silver lining for a chilly spring, I guess. Knock on wood, anyway. Roses may have been badly compromised, though; fucking sawflies, or whatever the hell those things were that I found on EVERY SINGLE BUD in the front yard.

* Apparent casualties of the winter, bizarrely enough: kerria, backyard euonymus, and artemisia powis castle. My Monet weigela is also looking pretty straggly.

* Not just one but TWO flower stalks on the go on every eremurus except the really big one. OH HELL YEAH. I was afraid they were in some sort of snit over the soil conditions, but I guess they just needed a couple of seasons to get established.

* Didn't plant any new tulips last fall, but as it turned out they almost all came back anyway.  Must get some of the interesting-shaped ones my mother-in-law has, too; was not too fussed about them based on the picture, but seeing them in person has convinced me.