Is it Spring??

Our weather has been awesome all winter.... I think we are still in winter.... hard to tell these days!!

Winter is a busy time in the yard with lots to be trimmed and pruned.  We have been busy checking everything over in the yard, making a list of what needs to be pruned now and what can wait a little bit.   The trees are already starting to push new buds so we had to get busy.

Fig and Pomegrante trees produce flowers and fruit on the new growth, and the new growth was just starting to pop thru, so we knew we needed to get those 2 pruned asap.  Both of these trees were way overgrown, so we knew we needed to "hard prune" them.  Not only for better fruit production, but also to make the trees/bushes shorter so we could get to the fruit.  I have been asking a lot of advice and reading whatever I could find online and learned quite a bit, so we took a chance and just did it!!!!

Here is the Fig tree before:

And after:

Yikes!!!  I was afraid to cut this much, but from everything I have read, it needs it and will come back much better.  It was getting very "leggy" with lots of weak branches that could not handle the weight.   I'm keeping my fingers crossed!!!

Here is the Pomegranate Tree before:

And after:

This one was a bit scarey also.  I know we removed over 1/2 of this tree, but there were a lot of crossing branches and again lots of very weak branches. 


Mel does not enjoy yardwork at all, but he really is good at it.  He pruned/shaped the tabebuia tree and it looks soo much better.  

There are flower buds just starting to open.


He also pruned/shaped the Redbud Tree.  (I think that is what it is called)

We have been trying to promote some growth to the back side of this tree.  There was a very large, overgrown bush to the back side before and the tree was pushed forward.  Hopefully this will help.  Might take a couple years to correct it and get the best shape.

The Pecan tree has almost lost all of its leaves, so soon we will be done raking leaves......that has been an every week job!!!

Next weekend hopefully we can get to this WAY overgrown hedge of American and Cape Honeysuckle.  We need to cut it back against the fence about 3 feet and top it to about 8 feet.  It will be a big job and I'm sure it will fill ALL 11 greens cans......

Hopefully pruning this back will promote more growth towards the bottom and the foliage will look better.   It definitely looks better since we put the drip irrigation in and it now gets regular water.
There is LOTS to do to keep us busy right now and soon we will start in on building the garden beds.


My knee surgery is still "pending", not sure when it will actually happen, but for now I can keep helping with the yardwork.   The doctor has modified what I can do at work, so until surgery I will have less stress on my knees.  I will still be carrying mail, but I will give part of my route away to someone else and I will carry part of a different route.  (it should be easier)  Unfortunately I will still be working the same number of hours, but I think I will be less tired when I finish the day.  We just started this on Saturday, so....time will tell.  

I am soo happy strawberry season has started!!!! Our favorite fruit stand down the road is up and running!!!  YEAH!!!!!

I hope you are having a great January, hard to believe it is almost over.   For those of you buried in snow.....my thought are with you every single day!!!!