Rise of the Rodents

[awty]

My guess for the lack of birds is they were effected by the deep freeze and late frosts.  Most crepe myrtle, azalea, butterfly bush, and hibiscus died back to the roots and had to regrow from the ground up.  That sent the migrants further south.  The birds that were around for -15°F, like cardinal and robin, likely lost population.

Everything else appears to have recovered.   It was the longest and fullest redbud and dogwood season I can remember.

We had a huge, beautiful deep pink Oleander bush on the back corner of the house.  It provided wonderful shade to the kitchen and flowered for months every year.  The extended deep freeze we had in February killed it...there was no coming back from that level of dead.  Husband bought and planted another one that seems to be doing well but we won't know till it flowers if it's that same pink or if it's white.

He got rid of the crepe myrtles.  They had never really grown all that well...were here when we bought the house.  He used the freeze as the death knell for those.

Husband gave up on azaleas.  He had wonderful luck with them in SC...the whole front of the house was lined with them.  He's not been so lucky here.

The mystery of the color of the new Oleander has been solved. It's gonna take a while to catch up to the one that froze to death though.