Chaos in the garden…

May is generally what I call a "transition" month here in North Central Texas. The blooms of spring are fading and the beginnings of summer are emerging. The leftover violas and pansies don't look their best any longer but they still have enough blooms left on them to extend their stay just a little longer. The time to pull out spent tulip foliage is far overdue...but I'm just now getting to it. The last of the cool season residents such as fennel, parsley, chard and the like are beginning to flower and bolt but still look too pretty to pull. Cool season weeds left un-pulled have taken up a firm residency by now and are quickly being flanked by the warm season invaders - dandelions, wild carrot, Bermuda grass (yes...it's a weed in my book). Being a professional horticulturist, I don't get much time to work in my garden in spring. So I let them all run a muck! Why not. Come May I look around and say "oh jeez, what must the neighbor's think of me!" They all claim to be fascinated by and enjoy my garden chaos, but at some point you've just got to get to clean up! Today I'm having all my trees trimmed...long overdue. Heavy branches were encroaching upon the precious sunlight for the veggie garden, not to mention the overall poor condition of most of my trees...Ashes, hackberries and the like. Full of trash. So today they've all gotten a haircut. It's like I have a whole new back yard...twice the size. The veggie plants are squealing with thank yous..I swear I can hear them. I spent the day cleaning in the front garden, pulling weeds and such while the crew worked. Still have some things to pull and new color to plant, which is overdue, but will hopefully get to that in the next week or so. Right now I'll post some photos of things blooming in the garden. Later, after the tree crew is done and cleaned up, I'll post some veggie garden updates.