Hate To Rush Things but Spring Now Please!

I am so thankful for the folks who put together the 10-day forecast.  I don't know what I would do without them.  I study that forecast with great anticipation every morning during the winter.  I frequently look several times a day, in hopes it might improve. Today, just when I didn't think I could take another day of ridiculously frigid snowy weather, and snow squalls, I see there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  Finally, a warming trend is included in the forecast, and it seems to include several days predicted to be in the 40s! Combined with days getting noticeably longer, and the occasional calls of a few very brave early voyaging birds, it gives me hope that spring may be in the air!  It may be time to at least consider emerging from hibernation and pondering some potential tasks for the days ahead. One of the first I'm contemplating, once the snow cover melts back some, is cutting the bittersweet vines as low to the ground as possible. I promised one of my partially strangled sycamore trees I would do that last year, but time got away from me. Late winter is a great time to accomplish the job as there is no competing vegetation and best of all no ticks!  It is a fairly easy job, a good way to break into the gardening cycle slowly.  There is no need to remove the vine from branches of the tree. Once the vine dies back it becomes light and fragile and it will lose its chokehold.  There is no need to paint herbicide on the cut portions at this time either.  Herbicides aren't effective during the spring months.  Plants are busy sending stored nutrients from the roots to the upper story beginning to produce foliage during the spring months.  Herbicides are always best applied when a plant has fully matured foliage.  It is at that point when the transfer of nutrients reverses and nutrients are transferred from the leaves back to the roots.  This allows the herbicide to be carried to the roots along with the nutrients which effectively kills the plant.  Sometimes herbicides aren't even needed.  Provided you have the time and patience, just keeping up with cutting the bittersweet vine, and pulling it out, when possible, will in time be enough to control an infestation. Cutting the lower branches of adjacent trees also helps as it deters the vine from climbing them.  Yup, after my second cup of coffee, I am actually looking forward to the physical aches that the spring tasks will bring!  In addition to the extended forecast, I am especially grateful for caffeine and Aleve!