Pinecones. Oy!

I just spent the last two hours using my leaf blower to push mostly pinecones and pine needles off of the front lawn. There were some leaves, but they mostly got blown about by the wind. I'm not really all that concerned with the leaves, but the pinecones can cause some real damage to the lawn. I'm actually quite fond of the look of pine needles, but I'd like a nice portion of the front lawn to remain lawn. I have a stand of trees in the front yard, so I blew the needles and pinecones there. When I bought the house, there wasn't a sign of pinecones or needles anywhere. I think the previous owners must have had someone come and remove all of it. I'm not planning to do that. I'm pretty happy with the way the yard looks, considering it's so early in the spring.

We reviewed pruning of shrubs today at my monthly Master Gardeners meeting. I have two lilacs at the beginning of the driveway. I may try thinning them some, though one of them doesn't look very full at all. Both of these lilacs are pretty old. You know how lilacs can get when they aren't pruned and all of the pretty blooms are way high up, so high that you can't reach them to trim some to bring inside and put in a vase.

If the weather holds, I think I'll start bringing some of the soil that was piled along the property from the post holes (for the fence) back and use it to fill the bottoms of the raised beds. I have ordered a delivery of peat moss, vermiculite and compost for the soil mixture for the beds. It should be delivered sometime next week. And then I can start to put some of the cooler season crops in, like lettuces!