Watered some of the garden pots, though we did have copious amounts of rain yesterday to keep them moist. Cut back some of the spring die-back in the Japanese maples, the euonymus shrubs and the purple smoke tree. They all begin renewing themselves heartily as soon as spring arrives, but invariably begin some die-back, even with the new growth which shrivels distressingly, further along in the spring. Whatever the maples seem to gain throughout the summer months in robust new growth, they seem to lose come the following spring. Ours is not their temperamental growing zone.

We've filled fewer pots this year than any other. Both of us decided we would finally put away the enormous pots we usually fill, and they were stored under the deck, all nine of them, though one of our neighbours took three of the clay-ceramic-glazed pots for her own backyard; we were glad to see them go. Filling them all year after year represents an enormous amount of work, disposing of the old soil, emptying the pots, storing them, and repeating the ritual in reverse in the spring.

As it is, we've more than ample stoneware urns and other glazed pots to fill. We had a veritable plenitude with all of them in service, and now that we've cut back we still have a large number that we fill with a beautiful, colourful, texture-full variety of annuals. Including the canna and calla lilies and begonia bulbs that we store overwinter in our cool basement.

There's never any end of garden work to be done, and we take our time doing it, enjoying it all to its fullest promise of achievement and sharing in nature's bounty of lovely growing things. One of our clematis vines has already set a large number of buds, and it just happens to be the most scintillatingly beautiful of all the vine flowers.

The climbing roses are setting out their buds as well. I'm finally prepared to surrender the larger of our two rhododendrons; it has been a good performer in the past, but now appears as though it's quite prepared to give up its hold on life. The hostas are growing apace, our very most favourite of all the garden plants, and we've a host of many different sizes and varieties, along with the heucheras whose presence complements them so well.

The alliums are now beginning their delicate bloom, the Japanese quinces are finishing up theirs. Our Magnolia trees still have some of their huge, gorgeous deep pink blossoms, and now the ornamental crab trees are overtaking them. The bridal spirea is preparing to bloom, and the Columbine are setting their lovely little blooms, just as the snakehead fritillary are beginning to fade.

The trilliums we transplanted years ago from our nearby forested ravine are completing their seasonal bloom, just as the Jack-in-the-Pulpits are beginning theirs, amidst the glory of the foamflowers among which they're planted under our elderly evergreens. Nature's springtime cornucopia of loveliness is a wonder to behold!