A Sunny Easter

Day 170: The Bunny couldn't have asked for a more beautiful morning for hiding eggs, and although he didn't bring me any, he did deliver some chocolate in yesterday's mail. Why I should have taken a sudden craving for milk chocolate instead of my usual preference for extra-dark, super blackout, 90-92% cocoa is beyond me, but my stash was entirely devoid of anything lighter than 80%. That is neither here nor there. What matters is that the garden is beginning to show its true colours. The Hellebores are exceptionally flowery this year, although the daffodils have put on a weak showing so far. The Forsythia is lovely, its arching stems visible through the kitchen window when I'm washing dishes, and the Red-flowering Currant has begun to attract the hummingbirds even though the flowers aren't open far enough to admit their probing little beaks. It is a rare day in March when blue sky shows as a backdrop to the promise of more flowers to come.

Evidence Of Spring

Day 174: Evidence of the changing season is beginning to show up in the garden, at least between snow showers. Only today, I discovered the volunteer primroses lurking in the moss and the swelling buds of the Red-flowering Currant. While some things seem to be running late (the daffodils are barely budded), the Hellebore is more lush than it's ever been before. What phenologic cues are these plants taking, that some are in a rush to produce as many flowers as possible while others seem to be husbanding their strength? What do they know that we do not? Humans have become so divorced from Nature that our bodies no longer follow the map of the seasons, so separated from the rising and setting of the sun that we complain when compelled to change our clocks to another designation which, after all, is a purely artificial construct in the first place. We have, as a species, moved a long way into an imaginary world. We could do with a lesson from the flowers in how to judge when the time is right.

Spring Bouquet

Day 167: For someone with quite a bit of shelf space devoted to vase storage, I seldom cut flowers to bring in the house. There are some regular exceptions to that rule: a single sprig of pussywillows to acknowledge the changing of the seasons, and one or two cuttings of daffodils, which I have in abundance. Flowers last so much longer when they're alive, and if I want to see them, I have only to step outside for a dose of colour or, if it's raining, look out over their heads from my windows. Spring has indeed arrived in my garden, and almost daily, something new is opening up. The lilac is in bud, the heather is in bloom, the Red-flowering currant's pink tips are swelling and almost ready to burst into panicles of Nature's own miniature hummingbird feeders. Grape hyacinths dot the flower beds, always popping up in unexpected locations, and in the shade beneath Big Doug, the incongruously-named native yellow violets show like tiny sparks of sunlight. Meanwhile, my calendar reminds me that it is time to sow gazanias indoors if I am to enjoy their blooms in August, and a rank of other seed packets stands behind them, awaiting their respective turns. Winter, I say with great joy, is done.

Spring Has Sprung!

Day 163: There are many variations on the poem, but I learned it as follows:

Spring has sprung,
The grass is riz,
I wonder where
The daisies is?

I don't know that you could stretch the definition of "daisy" far enough to encompass primroses, and the word's reach certainly does not extend to forsythia nor to rhubarb, so let's just say that the first colours are out, giving us a foretaste of what is to come. The gardening bug has bit me, and the number of seed flats and pots in my east window is growing almost daily, with marks on the calendar for the optimum planting dates for a variety of flower and vegetable seeds. Some species are ones I've never grown before like Mexican Sour Gherkins, one-inch cucumbers which resemble tiny watermelons and can be enjoyed straight off the vine. Others are my old stand-bys: Gazanias, marigolds, Calendula, cosmos. Not a square inch of prepared bed will be wasted, but neither will I plant according to a plan. I like the look of what I call a "scatter garden," plants and seeds stuck willy-nilly wherever space allows, to be a floral crazy-quilt at the peak of the flowering season. I do try to keep the border low and the back high, but there are always a few strays and volunteers with other ideas, particularly the sunflowers planted by my little avian friends for their personal harvest. Bring your paint pots and brushes, Summer! My garden is a canvas for your most expressionistic art.

Forsythia Defender

Day 154: Misumena vatia (Crab Spider)was identified for me by a friend who knows about such things. Me, I steer as widely as possible from anything with eight legs, so I nearly jumped out of my skin when part of the forsythia stepped forward for its portrait. It's not that I'm afraid of spiders, although it took a while for me to decondition myself from a dread instilled by my mother who panicked at the sight of even a small one. She grew up in Black-Widow country, so you could hardly blame her. Still, I like some warning that an encounter is forthcoming. If they take me by surprise, I freak. It's an odd thing for a naturalist to admit, but although I know they're helpful in the garden, I don't really like them.

Announcing Spring's Arrival

Day 172: In the Pacific Northwest, the color of early spring is yellow. It starts with Skunk Cabbage, quickly followed by daffodils, forsythia and a less welcome sight, dandelions. Scotch Broom rounds out the golden time as the first blues intrude, its masses of sneezeworthy flowers looming above the Camas prairies, but soon Mother Nature broadens her palette until summer becomes a riot of hues. Painted with splashes of orange and dots of red, dashed here and there with purples and pinks, accented with bursts of white, her canvas is one of motley in July. Perhaps she feels she must introduce us gently to her art by demonstrating a clear, pure style, and then encouraged by our acceptance, she seeks to surprise us with something boldly avant garde in her second showing. For now, though, she is in her Yellow Period. Spring has arrived.