IT IS SO NICE TO SEE all the plants coming back in my garden. My mountain mint spread and some yellow twig dogwood branches that I buried in the ground after pruning have buds on them. My Golden Alexandra has spread too. I will have little plants to share and bring to the garden club sale.

A gooseberry bush that someone gave me survived and my two little winterberries made it too! Unfortunately, the weeds also came back. I spent some time in April digging up the wild onions, dandelions, wild plantain and mock strawberries. My lilac bush did well. I hope yours did too. Last year a lot of people were worried about the lilac bushes.

Happily, I saw a lot of the violets that I transplanted last summer. The purple and white ones are spreading. I don’t have any yellow ones. I will have to put them on my list. My alliums spread and are doing well. This is only the second year that I have them. I have a few different sizes and they are a real delight. I didn’t plant any pansies this spring. My mom loved pansies and I would always plant some in her memory. It was just too cold and then too late. Something ate the few tulips that I have and the leaves were eaten too. Deer, I think. I am a long block from Ivy Hill, Newark and I have deer in my front yard. The houses behind me have deer too! They sure do know how to adapt. Nature is amazing like that, it adapts to a lot of the harm that we do.