Spring in my Step

I didn't have to go to work yesterday, because they had some tournament basketball games at our school.  I spent the morning making a huge mess trying to do some cleaning out.  As soon as I noticed it was nice enough to go outside, I did.

Before I started the clean up, I took some "before" photos.  I had read about cutting the old hellebore leaves off, so I did that first.  I took photos of several, but not all of them.  Some were planted 2 years ago, the rest, last spring.

Well, I used to be able to put 10 photos as a time into the blog post, and there was room between the photos to write.  This time, I had to put them in one at a time, and did not think to put space between them.  I was able to scoot them down from the bottom, and now, this has become a two day process.  What a pain!

The bed on the south side of the house has 5 or 6  hellebores in it.

The large front yard bed has several as well.

The east side of the house:

I think this is back to the front of the house after I trimmed back the old leaves.

The east side of the house:

The large front bed?:

One of the two clumps of surprise lilies is coming up.  It seems like one came up before the other last year, too.

Do you know what this is?  LOL  I have two neighbor friends who used to put one or two clumps of artificial flowers in my beds very early for a prank.  They haven't done it lately.  I sure was interested in what these lovely green leaves were, and saw that they are artificial.  I don't know if the neighbors put it there, or if it blew in from someone's garbage. 

I'm seeing more and more green! 

'Fireworks' Goldenrod:

Tulips that were given to me by the aforementioned neighbor friends:

The chives are up!  Yippee!

I don't remember if I've known what this is.  Do you know?  It's in the herb garden.

The woodland phlox in the tub is greening up.  I hope what I planted in the ground is, too.

Here are some broader views taken before I started the clean up.

I didn't take the after photos from the same angles.  I'm not finished, but it felt so good to be out there.

I also got my second planting of lettuce, spinach, radishes, beets, and a few carrots done.  Only one little lettuce plant is up so far from the first planting, but it may actually be a volunteer from last year.  Much of the garden is still too wet, but soon, I want to get some peas in.

The main spring in my step is due to thankfulness of knowing Jesus as my Savior.  The other spring is from the arrival of our gardening season.  Yes, winter weather will still be faced, but gardening time is here!

My prayers are with the people of Japan.  I hope Fer is OK.  I'm trying to remember if there is anyone else I know from Japan.  I hope they are going to be able to get the help they need to prevent further problems.