March...... Now that the snow has mostly gone, I can't help stopping to look in case there are some daffs starting to show some green spikes. There is an awful temptation to uncover some of the mulched plants to see what they are doing, but, I did that one year and lost things to the next frost.

March 7...... I've seen the first robin of the season today. I'm not sure they actually go far these days, but it sure is nice to see them back in the yard.

March 8.....What an absolutely glorious day!!!! A day like this makes me wish that spring was truly here, but I know there will be more frost yet. There was a house finch in the ash tree just singing his little heart out at dinner time. I hope his lady love appreciated the song......I know I did.

March 10.......OK..OK So I jumped the gun!!!! Yes we have cold and snow again. I should have known it was too good to be true. Wasn't it a good thing that I resisted the urge to uncover plants!!

March 19.......The ice on the lake is starting to break up. It isn't actually in pieces but there is just enough wind to shift the plate and the sounds are truly amazing. Imagine a pod of whales,sonar pings,a giant bubble pipe,and distant thunder all going at the same time. I have never heard it quite like this before. The sounds are almost continuous when the sun is out.

March 21........The daffs are up......the daffs are up!!!! Spring is here.......hooray!!!!!

March 25......The ice has gone from the lake today. It all looks so much better now. It's about two weeks earlier than last year. There has been a record kept of the "Ice Out" on Chemong Lake since 1877. The earliest it has gone out is March 4 in 1986 and the latest is May 3 in 1885.

March 30.........The first flowers are blooming. They are tiny iris called Iris Reticulata and Iris Danfordiae. The first is yellow and the second is purple and both are very close to the ground. The leaves come up later and look like square grass with a tiny white tip.

I've counted 5 different kinds of ducks on the lake. The merganzers,buffleheads and scaups are all black and white and will stay only until the northern lakes are ice free. There are lots of mallards that nest here and the loons are also back.

April 1....... I've just about finished reading the April issue of Canadian Gardening. It is the 10th anniversary issue and is one of the best they have done. It's well worth picking up at the news stands if you don't have a subscription to it.

The swallows are back today and are checking out the nesting boxes. I'd better get up there and see if I remembered to clean them out last fall. I don't think I did.

April 8.........We've got a winter storm watch on the radio today!!!!!! Don't they know it's supposed to be spring??? So I've put on some mellow music and will update this journal.

The flowers have put themselves on hold until the weather warms up again. It's funny how they can do that.......one of nature's miracles, I guess.

I saw the mink running along by the shore of the lake this morning.He lives under one of our sheds and must have been coming home from his night hunting.He is very fast and not often seen during the day.....we have to stay very still or he's gone in a flash. I"m very glad he made it through the winter.

April 13....... The weather this week has been all over the place. Well, that's what spring is all about, I guess. We had a few blizzards and rain and sun,but the flowers are still growing a bit.
The northern ducks are still on the lake here, so the lakes up there must not be thawed out yet.They always seem to know when it is safe to go. Maybe they send scouts to check it all out before the whole flock tries it.

April 15........What a beautiful morning!!! I took my coffee out onto the deck early to watch the sun come up. Everything was all misty pastels. The birds were singing away to beat the band. The merganzers were fishing right out front and having pretty good luck too. Two loons were calling back and forth and sounding lovely.Robins are fighting for their territory and not paying much attention to where they fly. They aren't the brightest of birds at this time of year.
I got a bit of gardening in before coming in to eat. Leaves from the iris that I didn't pull off last fall and a few armloads of other dead stuff. There is a lot of stuff coming up through the mulch,so I shall just leave it there for the time being.

April 19.......I took a tour around the garden tonight and discovered to my surprise that a patch of woodland hyacinths that I have had absolutely nothing from in two years has sent up a big bunch of leaves. I had to look in the bulb book to find out what kind of flowers to expect. The flowers come in pink,white and blue and are not as tightly packed on the stalks as with the regular hyacinths.The little bells dangle a bit like lily-of-the-valley. I had them planted under the fairy rose bush and though the marker was still there I had no idea what it was marking. Good gardener.....eh??? If I was an organized sort, I would document all the changes I make and mark everything,but then there would be no surprises.

I moved two planters that were beside the front door to a place under the locust tree with the plan to plant caladiums and coleus in them. It is very shady there now that the tree has grown so much, and the plants that were there were not doing very well.I moved them last fall to a sunnier place, and expect big things from them this year.

If you are in the market for some new bulbs this year, might I suggest looking for some Angelique Tulips. They are a beautiful pale pink with double flowers and last at least three weeks in the garden. They multiply nicely and are a little later blooming than most of the others.There are up to six or seven flowers per bulb too, which is a nice bonus.

April 22.......In the T&T Seeds Catalogue from Manitoba there are little idea boxes with all kinds of gardening hints. This one I think might be a good idea to try, so I'll share it here.

""Mildew and black spot are kept at bay organically on any roses by spraying with this solution: one teaspoon baking soda and a few squirts of Safer's Trounce in a litre of water. Apply bi-weekly.""

I am very particular about using chemicals on my garden. I figure I get enough exposure at work and don't need them in the garden too, so I looked up what is in Trounce and find that it is acceptable. It is an organic insecticide that contains pyrethrins, which are derived from plants. It is safe to use indoors as well. I have some pyrethrin daisys in the garden and am going to try making a tea from the plant. That way I will know for sure that there are no other chemicals in the mix. Even so, I am not happy particularly, with killing a lot of insects. Some of them are beneficial, and insecticides in general, do not differentiate between good and bad insects. Even the bad ones are useful as bird food if the birds are comfortable in the garden.

April 30.......OK...so much for the thought that even bad bugs are good!!!! That lasted right up to when I spied a samll web of caterpillars in my apple tree just outside the kitchen window. They are GONE now..... and not by birds! I have been checking daily to make sure there are none left behind.

On a happier note.....the daffs and tulips have buds on them and will soon be blooming. Upon reading the entries from last year in my Garden Journal, I discovered that I had separated the patch of blue Siberian Iris that my sister Jill gave me some years ago and put a clump of them in three different beds to see where they did the best. Good thing I read the entry before digging anything up since I forgot to put a marker in front of the clumps. The journal identifies the approximate location, but I shall leave off digging in those areas until the plants show up.

Jill, you'll be glad to know that the patch of primroses from Grandpa's garden are up and looking quite healthy. Can't wait til they flower.