Welcome spring (and welcome back to the blog!)

After my "experiment" last year, I am officially hooked and have dubbed myself a gardener. One year after beginning my quest to rid our two-acre property of leaf piles, pebbles and pricker bushes (yeah, I'm sure that's the technical botanical name), I have officially planted and more than 50 varieties of perennials and I am beginning to see their second season of life poking out through the faded mulch of last fall. Hooray!

Stargazer lilies 2010.

My big plans for this year started this weekend (my embarrassing pallor and mood thank god for 70-degree weather in March)! After being cooped up in the house and under sweaters for four months, there is nothing more satisfying than picking up sticks and other winter debris from your yard—without a coat. I don't know if spring cleanup is every gardener's delight, but yesterday, I truly reveled in the opportunity to prune my rose bushes, rake up dead foliage, and even transplant some dormant roots to more appropriate growing locations (now that I know how big some my plants will get.)

While this first entry doesn't have the pizazz of current photos (who wants to look at pictures of mulch and still-brown bushes), I'll throw in some images of successes from last year. After all, with only two posts to this blog in 2010, they can still be considered newly published photos.

So anyway, what are my big plans for this year? The start of a veggie garden, for one. Two, significant additions to the rose bed. Three, starting my annuals from seeds (oh yeah, I planted some marigolds and zinnias in mini peat pots this weekend too!) Four, a usable herb garden. Five, and most importantly, wage war on the deer! That's all doable, right??! Even with a two-year-old in tow and a five-month pregnant belly? I'll keep you posted and I promise regular entries to hopefully inspire your own garden experiments. Now go get dirty!