Hi everyone -- I've been pretty much away from this site for a while, for no particular reason, and am enjoying catching up on posts on the forums. Especially this one -- because now I don't feel so alone in dealing with the very late spring that we are having! Caroline, I can especially relate to your post about potholes and broken water lines, that was the story in our area too, after the winter that we had. The only good thing about winter was that we had lots of snow cover to go with the unusually extended below-zero temps, and I was so happy to see that my garlic survived without problems. Still waiting for stuff like the grape vines and blueberries to wake up -- they're only a couple of years old, so actually I'm just hoping that they DO wake up.
Saw my first hummingbird 3 days ago -- so that is definitely a spring milestone! On the other hand, we had a little snow yesterday and that did NOT make me happy... Gardening in the north is definitely not for sissies!
Woofie -- nail those wasps ASAP; I had a huge hornet's nest in my greenhouse last year, as well as one under our deck that we couldn't easily see. The one in the GH was built down in a wastebasket that I use for corralling bamboo poles and other garden stakes and stuff -- I often get small nests being built in there and take care of them right away, but this one I didn't realize was there because it was down in the very bottom of the wastebasket. By the time I realized it was there, I couldn't even get a good look at it because the hornets were so aggressive -- ended up dragging the hose into the GH early one cool morning, put the end in the wastebasket and turned the water on, and drowned them out; saw the queen crawling up one of the poles and got her with a shot of wasp spray. I normally am happy to live with nature, but not hornets in my greenhouse!!