The beautiful weather last weekend raised my level of anxiety somewhat. I wandered around looking for signs of life in the perennial beds. Always reliable, the sedum was poking through everywhere. It is one of my favorites. Early to show itself, the foliage always looks great, the flowers last forever and it provides winter interest well past Christmas. I often snip the dried flowers and hit them with gold spray paint to tuck into Christmas wreathes and arrangements. I am the queen of gold spray paint. I’ve been known to use it on standing sunflower heads in the fields. This is purely self amusement. I need to get out more.

Neither phlox or astilbe have emerged yet. Why I want to rush the season is beyond me. Last week I complained it was coming too fast. I guess it is the human condition to want something other than what is at hand.

This weekend was the time change. Once again the night people are stealing from the morning people. I miss Car Talk. They always suggested that we spring forward every evening and fall back every morning.

In last week’s column I mentioned germander and santolina as possible material for knot gardens. Santolina is also known as lavender cotton, not germander. Santolina is a dry, poor soil lover with lavender-like leaves. It flowers a nondescript yellow. It is handy in a rock garden as a touch of silver to set off pinks, blues and purples. Too much water or fertilizer will kill it. It thrives on benign neglect.

Now is the time to sharpen your pruning snips. I prefer Number Two Felcos. They are pricey but last forever. Farber Bag and Supply Company has the best price for them.

I like to cut lavender practically to the ground. There is no point in woody unattractive branches. Don’t be shy. Shortly, you will see sweet young greenery. Cut right to it. You won’t regret it.

Two reasons for the demise of a lavender plant are heavy, wet soil and fall pruning.

I sat on a bucket to plant some pansies and noticed my hellebores simply covered in honeybees. I wasted quite some time watching them. My friend Sharlee and I wondered if the nice weather brought out so many bees that the crocuses were not enough for them. I had never noticed them on hellebores in the past but perhaps my powers of observation are getting better with age.

I mentioned in a couple of last summer’s columns that I was busy sauteing my bumper crops of eggplant and zucchini. I froze several containers of each and have been enjoying them this winter.

Recently at the market I noticed some packages of organic eggplant and zucchini in the frozen food section. Each little package cost over four dollars and honestly less then a single squash was in each package and possibly a half a good sized eggplant in another. I walked away feeling rather smug.

I graduated from college in early June of 1968. After a long trip home to Rew, Pa. from north Texas, I was awakened early the next morning by my mother. Her exact words were: “They’ve killed Bobby Kennedy.” This was after two months of rioting and street burning in more than 100 American cities following the assassination of Martin Luther King. Bobby had just won the California primary. LBJ had decided not to seek a second term. Bobby and Eugene McCarthy were the anti-war candidates. By August the Democratic Party was in shambles. The nominating convention held in Chicago turned into a violent clash between Mayor Richard Daley’s police and the Yippies, Students for a Democratic Society, and thousands of protestors.

The party bosses at the time chose Hubert Humphrey even though he did not even run in the primary. The party went on to lose the White House to Richard Nixon.

I fear the violence and hatred coming out of the Donald Trump campaign events are a foretaste of what’s to come. I see it ending badly for all concerned. Although the moderate and establishment Republicans are doing everything to derail Donald Trump, in the end they will hold their noses and vote for him. Love of party trumps good of country. Have mercy.