The first blossoms

It looks like my Bartlett pear and apricot tree survived last months freeze. Both are now budding and blooming respectively. Both trees are in bud, too, with the taller one a bit ahead of the sicklier one. My Chinese date tree is budding as well as its other foreign tree.

My aloe vera and fir cracker succulent both died for sure, however, and it won't be another month before I see the real damage of the deadly freeze. The ice plant is dead. I'm worried about the bottlebrush shrub and my tecoma stans. I don't plan on replacing anything as of yet. All my roses are alive; I just can't seem to get rid of them!

I will have a truck load of organic waste to take to the transfer station.

I will be busy this spring pruning trees I haven't pruned yet, simply because I only prune to get rid of dead branches rather than prune for aesthetics. I will have my work cut out for me. I'll probably prune the salvia shrubs down a bit to get rid of the langy look. And for the first time I'm going to use a leaf sucker to pick up all the dead leaves that have provided the salvia some frost protection.

My germination sets are coming along. The beets are now coming up. Some of my beans are now transplanted but one already fell victim to a bird as its stem was cut off and uprooted yesterday. Now I'm hoping the overnight winds didn't blow any pots over...

I prepped one garden bed but still have five more to go.

I "rescued" several potato seedlings from the compost by transplanting them. A few of the seven that I planted should survive the ordeal.

Weather will be warm and spring-like for the next ten days. The birds outside are already using the bird feeders as their ralley point. The black sunflower seeds remain popular.