Passover

Location: Shepherdstown, West Virginia

Hardiness Zone: 6

What's new? Well, the Maple trees are starting to get leaves. They are a light green right now. The 'other' two trees are struggling, I can tell. The one has NO leaves, while the other is producing very FEW leaves. Will either survive? The pine trees is kind of 'eh' right now too.


The builder rerouted the drainpipe outflow pipe closer to the front of the yard and added a new ouflow pipe to the drainpipe that was washing away the soil from between the driveway, the house and the sidewalk. They were kind enough to reseed those sections and put new mulch down (they probably backfilled around the foundation too...).

The grass is getting high. In fact, we need a lawnmower!!! It's getting too tall and unsightly. Though we still need to reseed some areas because there are patches of bare soil.



Native plants I've seen blossoming... I've noticed the oak trees have their little pollen catkins, ready for the wind to distribute them on EVERYTHING. It's actually quite pretty, the yellow-green tinge of the oaks backdrop of the still-bare trunks of the other trees... It looks amazing on the mountains! I should get a picture...


What else? Um... I also noticed the little yellow wild flowers, I think they are yellow rockets (?) are blooming now.




Weather Conditions:

12:28pm

Temp: 77.7 °F / 25.4 °C

Clear

Humidity: 34 %

Dewpoint: 47 °F / 8 °C

Wind: 6.0 mph / 9.7 km/h from the SSW

Pressure: 29.91 in / 1012.8 hPa (Falling)

Waxing Gibbous, 99% of the moon is illuminated

Dandelions

Location: Shepherdstown, West Virginia

Hardiness Zone: 6


It is really starting to feel like Spring! The forecast high for today will be 76°F and plants are starting to kick into high gear. I hope the cold snap we'll have tomorrow won't cause them any stress.

Right now, the dandielions are starting to pop up all over the place (ha, but not in our yard, yet). We have different kind of weed, I think. It has really broad leaves and looks like some kind of cabbage. (??!!). We only have two, but man, they're kinda big.

Photo by Uwe Hermann

The red maple trees (according to a friend) are starting to produce baby seed pods (yay! helicopters!) .

Weather Conditions:

1:22pm





Temp: 68.4 °F / 20.2 °C

Partly Cloudy

Humidity: 57 %

Dewpoint: 53 °F / 11 °C

Wind: 4.0 mph / 6.4 km/h from the SE

Pressure: 29.54 in / 1000.2 hPa (Falling)

Waxing Crescent, 49% of the Moon is Illuminated

Cherry Blossoms

Location: Shepherdstown, West Virginia

Hardiness Zone: 6


I attended the community trash pick-up event this morning. Quite an impressive turn out! We had 25 volunteers--adults and teenagers. The number of volunteers made the job an easy and fast one. I volunteered to pick up trash between the town homes and the apartments. It wasn't the easiest place to pick up trash. It was on a steep hill with tall grasses and pricker bushes. Most of the trash consisted of empty beer bottles, plastic bags and Styrofoam cups, though there was the occasional broken skateboard and discarded carpet (ew!). After two hours, we quit and the HOA paid for pizza for the group.

The cherry blossoms are blooming, much later than the ones in DC.

I have to report not much has happened with regards to the plants and trees in the yard. Everything is pretty much the same. I'm growing more concerned about the maple (?) tree on the southeast corner of the property. It really does not appear to be producing any new buds and the growth that appeared to be new buds previously have turned black. I think he's a goner. :( His brother, however, appears to be doing 'okay,' with new growth on the upper limbs and buds throughout.

The pine tree seems to be yellowing a little... the browning on top has stopped, however the tree seems doing marginally okay. As opposed to having browning in patches, he seems to be getting color in those areas, but the overall color appears to be yellowing all over. I doubt it's lack of rain, Mother Nature's been more than generous with rainfall the last few months. Lack of nutrients? pH? I don't know.

The grass is starting to get tall, we need to look into getting a lawn mower soon!!

Weather Conditions:



Temp: 56.4 °F / 13.6 °C

Clear

Humidity: 55 %

Dewpoint: 40 °F / 5 °C

Wind: 9.0 mph / 14.5 km/h from the NNW

Pressure: 30.03 in / 1016.8 hPa (Falling)

Waning Crescent, 0 % of moon is illuminated