Spring is here, and judging from my watering eyes and mucus filled nose, it has come in full force. But it's not all bad; we have some beautiful cherry blossoms in our backyard:

Also, my Peach Tree in a pot survived the winter and a Peach Tree Borer (which I found and smushed sometime in February) to come back lush:

We have an imperturbable lilac bush as well:

Most exciting, however, is our recent replacement of a Yucca that died in our front yard with a Bird of Paradise bush. The new bush hasn't leafed out or flowered yet so no pictures, but the whole process was interesting. This is what our back yard yucca looks like:
It's beautiful, green, and grows very little. Here's the corpse of our other Yucca:
The interesting part is that upon digging up the dead plant I found hundreds of bugs infested in it's roots and trunk. They had eaten it hollow. I learned from a local nursery (Jericho nursery on Alameda, highly recommended) that I'd found a Yucca Weevil infestation. Here's a picture of mine, with a larvae and adult:
Here's the adult after I got done with him:
Anyway, I dug up as much of the infested dirt and actual bugs as I could. But, since there were literally hundreds I'm sure I missed a few. I followed up physical removal by applying a product with Merit insecticide (Imidacloprid) and another product with Carbaryl. The first was specifically recommended to kill these weevils. Here's hoping.