Glorious - the only work to describe our Magnolia which is now proudly showing it's color.  The tree is blooming a full three weeks early this year.  It's been fun to watch the progression to flowering, which has happened so fast.  Today was another lovely warm day, probably in the 60's.  Some of the flowers were fully open this morning, but by afternoon the mass of blossoms on the west side of the tree were basking in the sun, while those on the east were being a little more cautious.  I hope they will continue to show a some restraint, and in doing so, prolong the glory.

I've been continuing to work outside as the weather permits, mostly raking leaves, pulling weeds, and generally just cleaning up my perennial beds.  Last Fall we decided not to remove the fallen leaves from the beds, hoping that they would protect the soil and prevent some of the weeds from germinating.  Our plan seems to have worked.  As I remove the sodden leaves I'm finding very few weeds and surprisingly few snails.  I had assumed that the leaves would become the perfect habitat for snail production. Fortunately, that hasn't happened.  The good news; no snails, but yes, ladybugs.

I think that this is going to be a great year in the garden.  I'm having a very good time, working at a measured pace when the weather is good, and am ahead of my ususal schedule.  We have a number of very old and beautiful peony plants in our yard.  Some of them get quite tall, inevitably the flowers become heavy with rain and fall over, breaking the stems.  Each year I try to support them, but I usually get to it too late and have had only limited success.

Last week I noticed that they were coming up.  I made a quick trip to our local recycler and was lucky enough to find several tomato cages for sale.  They are probably not sturdy enough to support a large tomato plant, but I think they'll work nicely for the peonies.  I put a cage around each plant, then used garden twine to crisscross up and down the frame adding additional support.  I'll now just have to wait and see what happens.  Hopefully, this will be the year that I get it right.