We Need Rain

Light frost last night, 32 degrees when I got up, but sunny, and in the 70s this afternoon.  This is just not typical April weather.  Everything has leafed out too early.

Bartlett came by today and inspected.  They treated the Austrian pines for white pine weevil and sprayed fungicide on other trees.  The white birches need some serious pruning for development and form, so I've asked Bartlett for a quote.

After March's 5 inches of rain, it's been 14 dry days and everything is drying out.  We need rain.

• Watered the katsura tree and the dappled willows.

Planted the Epimedium rubrum under the maple in Meadow's Edge.  Divided the helenium.  Pruned the dappled willows after discussion with Bartlett.  The branches I did not prune over winter are rangy and have leaves at intervals, so I chopped off a few.  The stumps of what I pruned last winter are bursting with new growth.  Next year: coppice them.

Dug up the gooseneck loosestrife and planted them in containers with some soapwort.

Whiteflower Farm order came today: 2 male Actinidia kiwi vines, and 3 bunchberry Cornus canadensis.

The little bitty tuliptree I unpotted and planted out in the meadow yesterday is looking very limp and stressed.  I hope it takes.  We did have a light frost last night, and it only has a little herbaceous growth, it's not really a sapling yet.

I did more cutting and shaping of the new gardens, still more to do.  Working at the top of the driveway, I smelled a beautiful fragrance... it's the daffodils!  Perfume on the breeze.

Early spring light: