I'm seeing a few small flowers on the Creeping Phlox.

The Creeping Phlox surprises me each year. It does nothing throughout the year that resembles "growing." Yet I still see several small blooms each spring.

The Chinese Snowball looks great ! I first started seeing blooms appear on March 5. That means as of the date this photo was taken, April 2, the Chinese Snowball had been blooming for one month.

I noticed over the winter that one of the Sky Pencil Holly bushes looked like it was dead. With the spring awakening process underway, I can now confirm that it is, indeed, dead. The other bush is still alive, but doesn't look too great. I also see the Tiny Dessert Asiatic Lilies in the planters starting to wake up.

The Yoshino Cherry tree has finished blooming and is now turning green.

This tree was still white in the March 30 photo I posted earlier. It's amazing what a difference three days makes.

The Vitex Shoal Creek continues its awakening process.

I was concerned about this plant because it dropped all of its leaves over the winter and showed no signs of activity. But all is well, and I can now breath a sigh of relief. I realize now that this is what it's supposed to do. But given my track record, it's understandable why I would worry.

The three crape myrtles are also starting to wake up for the season.

Crape Myrtles bloom over the summer which will give the yard some color at a time when color isn't normally present.

Things are not looking too good for the Indian Hawthorn shrubs. I said that same thing last month hoping that maybe these shrubs were like the Vitex and just needed some time to wake up. But this doesn't seem to be the case. I think they're dead.

I didn't get much of a blooming season out of the Bridal Wreath Spirea this year. Last month's week of overnight freezing temperatures arrived at the right time to curtail the blooming.

The plan for today was to finish spreading new mulch. Three areas remained after last weekend, all of which would get black mulch. I made another run to Lowe's and started spreading.

I added black mulch around the Goldmound Spireas and Coronation Gold Yarrows.

The Silver European Fan Palm Tree was the last recipient of new mulch. I actually have two palm trees here. The Silver European Fan still looks ok, even though it seems to be shrinking. A small twig can be seen poking up through the mulch on the far right. This used to be a large Green European Fan Palm that I first planted in the back yard back in 2013. Like the Silver European Fan, it kept shrinking. So I first moved it to an area beside the driveway to see if that would be enough sun. When that didn't work, I moved it out to the front of the yard to try and save it, which also didn't work. That small twig stayed green for a few years, but not any more. It has officially ceased to be.

And with that, all the mulch in the front yard had been replenished.

This is good news ! I originally had five Super Blue Lavender plants in this spot. One of them died shortly after planting. The others held on until this past winter when three more died, leaving me with one. It hasn't looked too healthy so far this season. So seeing green is a good sign. It looks like it will recover.

I found a few blooms on the Dogwood Cherokee Princess this year ! For whatever reason, this tree hasn't bloomed in the past. So seeing a few flowers this year was quite nice.

The other Dogwood always looks great each spring, and this year is no exception.

I really like the cluster of ornamental grass I relocated from the back yard to the corner by my front walk. I think it's the right size and shape for the space.

I've still got a lot of blooms on the Japanese Camellia. The Japanese Maple is looking quite red, which is good. And it's good to see some activity at the Vitex Shoal Creek.

I've still got some more cleaning up to do. But everything looks pretty good so far.

Front yard panorama, April 2.

I've got a lot of cleaning up to do on this side of the yard as well. The large Sweet Gum tree drops a bunch of those small grenades all over the place. So my next project will be to adjust the lawn mower as low as I can and collect them in the mower bag.

Mowing over these grenades sounds like a fireworks display. But using the mower to gather all of them seems to work well.

I'm happy with everything so far. It's amazing what some fresh color can do for the overall appearance.

Front yard panorama, April 2.