Garden, early spring

This past week the weather was nice enough to get some garden work done. I replanted some deck planters, refreshed the soil in a pots of existing planters.

But some work I didn't need to do, all I needed was to take my pruning shears and snip a few blossoms.

The big purple bloom in the above close up is from my tree peony. It took 3 years for it to really start blooming, and now it blooms like crazy.

In the picture below is the same blossom, in the vase with some white lilacs. When we bought out house, 12 years ago, I bought several lilac bushes on clearance. I thought I got several different color lilacs, and planted them in several spots in the yard. Unfortunately they were mismarked, so most of them turned out to be the usual light lavender color. One was white. 2 years later I added another white lilac. Last year we found a dark purple lilac and my daughter planted that.

I love flowers, and I love flowers with a soft perfume to them. But my rose garden is in rough shape and needs a major overhaul. But for now I have lilacs & hyacinths.

My oldest daughters, 5 of 6 and 4 of 6, started several different veggies inside and transplanted them in late April. Unfortunately the slugs, squirrels and deer enjoyed most of them. Except for the pea plants, so we will have peas in abundance. A trip to the farmer's market, in the next few weeks, will be needed to get bigger vegetable starts. Andwe'll need to do some beer traps. Any other ideas to keep the slugs out?