More breaking news from the yard

Another bit of "yard drama" I've been meaning to share (in addition to the loss of half my lilac bush - arg!) ... after doing some brush-clearing in an area of our yard that used to be a vegetable garden, I discovered a small, struggling redbud tree.



Back at our old house we had a really pretty one that I carefully pruned each year so it developed a truly beautiful rounded canopy. Sadly, the crews that demolished our house after the flood in 2008 almost immediately snapped this poor tree in half with the backhoe. It was heart-breaking. So I was quite ecstatic to uncover this little specimen in our new backyard - yes, we've lived here almost 3 years and I've never seen it before - that's how "covered" it was by all the overgrowth in the former vegetable garden! Hard to get a picture of the full tree, but here's a close-up of a few of the buds finally in bloom.



Also, we haven't mowed yet for the first time so there are violets everywhere amongst the bright green grass. Here's the view heading up the hill from the vegetable garden - it looks like a little "meadow" of violets!



A close-up of some of the violets...



And, it looks like this shrub is back in full force this year - it didn't bloom nearly as much in 2010, and needs to be trimmed a bit, but it's one of the few things that's bloomed under our recently-overcast skies. My mother-in-law called this Quince.



Close-up of quince blooms...



More soon!