A couple days ago, the yellow woodsorrel was in glorious full bloom. Lots and lots of bright yellow pretty flowers with 5 small petals. The flowers seemed to appear very suddenly all at once everywhere--a few, of course, came in advance here and there over the preceding week or two, but the overwhelming majority bloomed all at once simultaneously. The flowers from the mass bloom a couple days ago are already diminishing, though. The stems of the yellow woodsorrel are beginning to harden and the roots are just now becoming a little woody, so when you pull the sorrel out, you can easily get the whole plant now, roots and all. The dandelions have been going crazy for about a week--lots of yellow flowers and white puff balls bearing seeds. My front and side lawns don't have that many weeds, but half of my back lawn (the northwestern half) has a large variety of weeds that I left alone last year, and purposefully did not remove. Last year I concentrated my weed removal efforts on the front and side lawns and the southwestern half of my back lawn. Things are looking up there. The weed count there is so, so much lower than in the northwestern half of my backyard that there's no comparison. So I'm pleased about that. Temps here have varied daily considerably from daytime highs in the 80's to 60's to nighttime lows in the 30's to 50's Fahrenheit. Was a very warm March--I think the weather reporter said the 4th warmest on recond in St. Louis. And of course, we had a very mild winter--I think also the 4th warmest on record he said. In mid-March I was surprised to see some of my zoysia producing seedheads. They're the single-spiked seed heads that zoysia is known for. In mid-March I only saw the seedheads in two largish zoysia plugs that I had planted last year. The larger of the plugs is about 18 inches by 15 inches, IIRC. The seedheads appeared only in a small area of the plug that was about 1/8 the size of the plug. I pulled the seedheads out to see what would happen, and within days new seedheads would appear again but only in the same smaller areas of the 2 plugs. However, this was in mid-March. As of the past couple days, there are seedheads all throghout the zoysia, not just the new plugs I planted last year. The front and backyard zoysia lawns are full of single-spiked seedheads--short ones. Last March, which was two months before I started reading about zoysia (in order to plant about 10 pieces of sod--4 big pieces of sod to wipe out a front lawn weed patch and 40 smaller plugs in the backyard to eliminate another weed haven), I didn't yet know much about zoysia so I let all the grass grow tall, very tall. At times early last year before I began reading, I would cut the zoysia only once every 3 weeks. That zoysia got tall and produced lots and lots of seedheads, which later got mowed down. I guess I incorrectly thought I wouldn't see any seedheads this year because I'm keeping the zoysia short, mowing at 2 and 2.25 inches, but there are the seedheads again, now on short spikes. I'll be mowing tomorrow. Zoysia seedheads are much prettier seedheads than those of bermuda. The single-spike seedheads of zoysia are actually attractive, unlike Bermuda's 3- to 5-fingered seedhead. Things are looking up for the eggplants too. We planted into 8 small styrofoam cups some eggplant seeds that my mother had collected and stored about 8 years ago, before my father came down with Alzheimer's around 2005. The 8-year-old seeds produced seedlings after about 10 to 14 days! There are now 10 sprouted egg plants about 1 to 1.5 inches high in those cups now, with healthy leaves. Don't you just love the taste of egg plants! Last year my mother transplanted to the outdoor garden young egg plants that she got from my uncle, but this year we're growing them from 8-year-old seeds! Would you believe my uncle is 94, doesn't have a trace of Alzheimer's and he still gardens and mows his own lawn! And he uses a walk-behind mower! (My mother is much younger than my uncle--big age disparity between the two. By the way, I'm exactly 45.) Finally, the zoysia has been really greening up this week. Whole lotta green in there now. I was worried parts of the lawn would be yellowish after last year's 2,4-D exposure turned parts of it yellow--that's why I bought the organic fertilizer this year (never had to use fertilizer before). But the zoysia is turning green on its own. However, I now have the fertilizer so I'll be using it soon, probably in a week or two.

I am in the "yes" camp in answer to this question -- fall or spring, whatever suits your schedule and thevagaries of weather, time availability, etc. I have usually done late winter (not spring...) cleanup, usually about late February. I personally think it is a matter of personal taste and time availability and weather. Though I am not much of a fan of the "dead brown grass winter garden" (apologies to those out there who love it....), I DO think that the mixed or perennial border can be very lovely in November before the snows hit. So I do want to leave the border standing through that month. If December isn't too cold and I have the time I have cut back then. Most of the time not For me, the best time to cut things back is on that rare day in February when the weather warms up and it might even be sunny. A little taste of spring. Great to work out in the garden. Garden chores almost seem welcome. Main thing to remember I think is that if you have lots of bulbs in your borders, you want to get the cutback completed before they start to emerge. Not good to tromp on new bulb foliage.

Susan, Great to see your post. I have more eggs than I can count and lots of larvae. Momma has now visited my plants 6 days in a row! I set aside 2 incarnata plants for a teacher who is raising Monarchs (she didn't have a source for food) that she ordered. The cats went through the original plants that she got from me. Today when she came over to get the new plants, they were covered with eggs. So I ended up sending her home with a bag full of new growth from my incarnata plants. I just have to make sure I have enough food for the babies I'm finding. My plant leaves are starting to look like Swiss cheese. Randy, looks like the Monarchs have found your place too. Journey North had an interesting pie chart that showed the states' importance to Monarchs. We rank second. Have you thought about marketing your Butterfly house you designed? I'd be interested in one. Sandy

I agree with the other posters - best to get these weeds out now before they have a chance to reseed. Chickweed is not too hard to pull out now, after all the rain we've had the last few days. If you have that much of a problem suddenly, were the chickweed etc seeds 'imported' in the 17 yards of bed mix, perhaps? One year I very successfully spread chickweed around every single perennial in the yard. I had thrown chickweed on my compost pile the year before and its seeds survived the composting process..... Also, when you have cleared the weeds, it would be a good idea to mulch. Keeping down weeds is one of mulching's great benefits.