Signs of Spring!

Look what I spied in the garden today!  Little clusters of early daffodils have begun to poke up through the pine needles and dead leaves of winter, confirming Punxsutawney Phil's prediction that Spring is on the way.  Thanks, Phil!

Punxsutawney Phil, February 2, 2011

I have buds popping open on one of my maple trees as well:

The sky was such a pretty blue today, too.

Anyway, these irrefutable signs of impending Spring are reminders that it's time to pay attention to gardening again.  Never mind that it's still freezing cold outside, and I've got a practically perpetual fire burning in the fireplace.  At some point this weekend I need to:

1. Prune my crape myrtles -- not behead them like some overzealous husbands who are no longer permitted to go anywhere near these trees with the pruning shears, mind you -- I just need to trim off last year's blooms because the crape myrtle blooms on new growth.

2. My gardenia bushes are a sickly yellow-green instead of a deep, rich green, which means they need some acid-rich Holly Tone fertilizer to combat the clay so-called soil.

3. My lilac.  Oh, my lilac -- will this be the year it finally blooms?  I can't just stand by helplessly yet another year as it struggles and fails.  I begged my husband to move it to a sunnier location, but he refused.  I can't even get a shovel into the earth, so it's not like I can move this tree by myself, either.  I need to go talk to the guy at the nursery and see if he thinks the lilac might respond to the temptations of well-rotted cow manure compost.  If not, perhaps my husband might respond to some well-placed cow manure...