April days

R & I worked a bit in the garden this morning, carefully raking leaves and litter (fallen twigs and such, not trash) from one end of the semishaded garden. The moonbeam coreopsis has sent up purply-red shoots, an inch or more high already, and it's managed to spread quite beyond the rock edging. Next weekend, I'll try digging up the runaways and planting a clump or two beneath the butterfly bush.

Speaking of the butterfly bush, I'm happy to see new growth at the top. Now all I need to do is prune it lightly (instead of to the ground, as before) and we should get quite a tall specimen this year. The flowers are butter-yellow, and the plant is ganglier than our smaller purple and pale lavender ones, but the butterflies, bees and hummingbirds flock to it all summer and well into fall.

The sweet woodruff has spread wonderfully, practically doubling the area it covered last summer. I planted one small clump, grown in a 6-inch pot, beneath the dwarf pine three years ago. The first year, it languished. Last year, it had established nicely and covered a few square feet. Now, it's definitely on the move. I hope it extends all the way to the fence; nothing else will grow under the evergreens and giant euonymus hedge.
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R gave me a haircut a little while ago. I truly needed it; I'd developed a full-blown crop of "academic hair" (think Einstein's hair). Don't know why I let it go so long--a fresh, close-cropped haircut always feels so good.
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All right, I must get back to my grading, or I'll end up out in the garden again (soon, soon).