We are entering the third full week of April; we have had some mid 80s or higher temps and some very cool 40s at night this month. 

This is an April unlike any other that we have experienced. The coronavirus has changed the world as we have known it. Hopefully, before long, we will be able to return to our lives as they were before.

This has been a beautiful month; dogwoods have bloomed, iris and amaryllis are blooming, daylilies are starting to show their beautiful flowers, volunteer annuals are popping up in and out of flower beds and unusual plants like nun’s orchids and clivia lillies (kafir) are blooming also. We have had a continuing parade of beautiful flowers blooming in a rainbow of colors.

Pecan trees have leafed out and are sporting fresh young, light green foliage. This is the stage when pecan trees are most beautiful to me, I love the many shades of green as trees are leafing out for spring. Very soon the little catkin blooms will be falling from the trees like skinny worms.

Clusters of tiny marigold plants are popping up where the seed pods were shed last fall. Some young iris have germinated and are sprouting up with little spears of green foliage. Some species of ginger are breaking through the ground and others were never killed down during the winter. 

I did get the big bed of Pinecone gingers sprayed and have killed the foliage of the dreaded Alstroemeria, but I do not think my concoction of herbicides will kill the masses of roots under the ground. The pine cone gingers are not sending up spears of foliage yet, so they were not damaged by the herbicides.

Amaryllis seeds are forming on the earliest flowering bulbs, I counted today and I have 35 amaryllis blooming so I pollinated a few of the most beautiful ones and hopefully I will get seed with good genes and beautiful flowers.

There is so much to do in my garden I am positive I will never get it all done. I’m thinking maybe I should start to downsize instead of constantly wanting more and more flowers. I can’t seem to keep up with the ones I have, yet I still want more.

I have a small bed of broccoli and kale and one Better Boy tomato plant. Lack of sun puts them at a disadvantage right from the start. 

Multiplying onions are everywhere; they are in the grass of the yard, the flower beds and every other imaginable spot, they even come up in container-grown plants. They are edible and at this time of year they are at their peak of growth and the small onions are as large as they will get before they scatter the clusters of tiny baby onions growing at the top of the plants.

Tiny violets and oxalis are blooming with masses of their little flowers. Most people do not like oxalis, but I think it is beautiful especially when clumped together and forms a large round spot full of flowers. It is a perennial and returns each spring with fresh new foliage followed quickly by fresh flowers. 

The flowers spring from small crystal-looking tubular bulbs and can be a pest if they begin to march across your beds. Simply dig them up put them all in one spot and you will have a beautiful circle of oxalis. Their flowers are available in lilac pink, pink and white. 

In late summer, oxalis will develop a orange fungus on the underside of their leaves and soon their foliage will begin to wilt away and they will go dormant until late fall when they emerge again and will bloom all winter.

I think I have used up my allotted space, so I will see you next week.