Don't plant them into the ground until ALL danger of frost is over. You know your area for that. If you want them to bloom as early as possible, I would give them an early start in a large pot. What I did with mine ( zone 5), is pot them in a large one or two gallon pot ( dependent upon the size of the tuber), then put it out on warm days, but at night I carry them back into the garage. They don't like the cold, but would benefit from the time to form a good root system. ..... just my humble opinion.

Or Blue Cohosh, Caulophyllum thalictroides. That and the two Thalictrum species (Meadow Rues) are native wildflowers.

Sorry for the small image! I will attach one with larger font below: Thank you Ken and Lane for the advice. To Lane -- I will reconsider my choice of blue spruce based on the humidity in our region. I do plan to cut down a lot of the hybrid poplar and willow stuff as it grows and as the more sturdy evergreen trees grow taller. To Ken -- I love oak trees, but I don't want more trees that are close to the house, and I mostly want to stick with evergreens as I love year round color and not dealing with leaves. I would consider planting them further from the house though. As for the soil, there is definitely a lot of clay (we are actually near Westerville) but I'm hoping that all the excavation will loosen some of the top soil. Also, I am fine with the planting ending up being a bunch of tall trees -- in fact, that's what I prefer. Basically, in 20 years (we hope for this to be our forever home) I would love to look out our front door and practically see a forest of mostly evergreen trees separating us from the road. I just want to make sure that I do it in a way that ends up crowded in a good way as quickly as possible without hurting the trees. I too worry about the lifespan and strength of "fast growing" trees, but I do prefer to have at least part of this planting growing as quickly as possible. So my thinking was to mix in 3 different species of these fast growing trees so that I don't have to worry about losing them all at once to disease, and surround them with better long-term trees so that as they die/loose limbs, I'll still be left with a little mini forest of evergreen trees. I hope this helps give a little more detail into what I am looking to do. I am definitely open to different species than the ones listed above, and I am fine with planting further apart if I can still achieve a dense, forest-like area in the future.

Right now? Not much. March and April are lazy months on the lawn. When the forsythia blossoms (6a is a wide zone, so a locale is helpful), putting down a pre-emergent like Dimension 0-0-7 or Stonewall 0-0-7 will really help reduce your weed problems through part of the season--three to six months respectively depending on which product you use. For you, that's likely to be April sometime. Feed the lawn with any good lawn fertilizer (not a Weed and Feed) around Memorial Day. It seems late, but that's when lawns want to eat. Choose anything with a high first number, and low second and third number (like 35-0-2, or 32-2-6, or something like that). Just get the cheapest, they're all about the same, and choose something with very little slow release nitrogen--it's cheaper and you don't need it. Feed again on Labor Day, October 1st, and (optionally), when the lawn stops growing and you do the last cut for the year. That last one helps store food for the following spring and healthy growth and really helps, but you can skip it if you want. Spray weeds with any good spot-spray, like Ortho Weed B Gon--I go with the Clover, Chickweed, and Oxalis as having a very wide-spectrum kill and taking out most weeds. With the pre-emergent, weeds should be down about 90%, but you'll still get some. If you water the lawn, do it infrequently and deeply. 1" at a time would normally be optimal, but it does vary (a tuna can is 1" deep, which will help you measure). Once a week would be the normal minimum. Very hot weather can mean irrigating more often, but less.