Spring project and yard pics

I guess this picture didn't turn out like I wanted, but there's a little bee pigging out on pollen from our holly bushes (the blur just to the left of the middle of the picture). That's the reason I worked so hard all summer to keep them healthy. He and his friends (probably 60 or so) show up about two weeks after the robins that show up each early spring to eat the ripe red berries. That tradition takes two afternoons. Then within a week or so the bushes start giving off this amazing scent. It smells as good as honeysuckle to me, but it much more subtle. And after that, here come the bees! It makes me feel SO good to contribute to the well being of our bees.

Our Bridal Wreath in full Spring bloom.

This picture makes me sad. This wisteria plant is actually in our neighbor Tim's yard, but it hangs over our fence. I never thought to water it all summer, and I don't think he's even aware it's back there (it's in his back corner behind his storage shed). I was surprised to see it blooming at all, but it was greatly diminished from years past. If we (God forbid) have another horrible summer I will try to remember to water it.

This is a weed, but I think it's kind of pretty. We had two or three of them, with more bees buzzing happily around them.

Here is a rare picture of Tucker. I need to devote a post about him soon. The crazy ball of brush behind him is the Asian Jasmine remains that I dug up. I discovered the reason it's called Asian Jasmine is because the roots go down to China!!!! It took me several different afternoons to get this far, only to discover that there are still tons of roots in the soil and I'm nowhere near being finished yet. I wanted to get it finished and plant some new perennials by our Easter get together this coming Saturday. But now I'm thinking I won't plant anything in it until next spring.

The afternoon I finally got that big ball detached from the earth was just after a day of heavy rains. I chopped and chopped at the roots with my shovel and was about to finished, when I realized I had chopped through a wire of some kind. Okay, several wires. Oops. I hoped that they were not still live, made a mental note that I needed to call my husband to ask, and kept chopping and hacking in a new area. Within seconds, I saw I had hit a snake. Well, that was when I called it a day, my friend. I hate killing things, and felt really bad, even though it was a snake. The next day I told my story to a girl on Facebook who was in homeroom with me in high school and is now an avid gardener. She told me to be careful because with the warm weather and it being Spring and all it's mate was probably not far away. I saw one in the same area a few days later when Jav and I went out to stuff that ball of Jasmine into our yard cart.

It sashayed into the huge remaining patch of Asian Jasmine that I will not be touching after this project.