Today is the first day of Spring! Its a cloudy, chilly day, but John and I decided to spend the day outside in spite of it! Last week there were several blue sky with nice warm temperature days- spring is in the air, but the weather took a small step backwards this weekend! (To the tune of snow showers last night!) Gardening was on our agenda and the crape myrtles were first on the list. I googled instructions on how to prune the branches properly since in the past I have committed "crape myrder" and was determined not to do so this year! It felt so good to be outside in the fresh, albeit, allergy inducing, air!
The problem is, once I get the momentum going with the clippers, it's hard for me to stop! From the crape myrtle, I went on to trim several other small trees, including a sorry looking smoke tree suffering from yet another one of my bad pruning jobs done a few years back! The only remedy was to clip it waaaaay back. During the process, I noticed the beautiful butterscotch yellow core of the branches and a surprisingly delightful fresh scent as well. I dabbed my wrists with a slice of the wood and the fragrance was so delectable I wished I could replicate the scent in a perfume!
I began thinking of ways to show off the features in the wood. I have a shallow acrylic container that used to belong to my sister Kim which seems conducive to an artistic take on whatever it holds. My sister was an incredibly talented floral designer and used to do all sorts of cool things with custom acrylic containers. She would fill them with unique combinations of flowers and objects creating beautiful works of art. She is now my guiding force from heaven.
I enlisted John's help- we sat outside and as he cut the wood pieces, I arranged them and filled the container. It was a family affair!
I added crape myrtle pods from last years spent blooms and a yellow pansy. The first tree we planted last year in Bret's memory was a butterfly magnolia which was supposed to bloom yellow flowers in the spring. The tree didn't make it and we were unable to locate another so we replaced it with a Japanese maple. Soon thereafter we noticed a clump of yellow pansies that appeared near the maple. The annual survived the entire year and is continuing to thrive.
Niskua got in the act as I was taking photographs!
The first day of spring turned out to be a day of wonder for which I am incredibly grateful!