Yesterday it went up into the 60-degree range for the first time since about 1997. I took the opportunity to go nose around in my garden.
While this may look like a garden only a mother could love, I assure you, there is a lot going on!
I am continually amazed at nature’s resilience. Even though just a day or two before they were under snowpack, little green shoots are coming up all over the place. The crocus, delayed by the piles of white stuff, are peeking up now. The daffodils are making an impressive show. All this warmth is melting some nice moisture right into their roots. Although, I tried to dig a little and about 3 inches in it’s still permafrost.
I mostly just cleared away dead leaves I hadn’t had a chance to get taken off before the first snowfall fell what feels like decades ago at the start of this never-ending winter. My bare hands got snowmud on them, cold but alive. My irises are starting to throw up tender little green leaves. I found far fewer casualties than I’d feared, although it did make me sad to find a couple of squishy tulip bulbs that had not survived the winter. For the most part, though, everything is stirring. The thyme is trailing, fabulous and green, over the small reclaimed brick flower bed wall I made. Just divine. The forsythia are right on cue. Even the rose bush is promising leaves. I broke off the tips of a couple of the crepe myrtle and hydrangea branches, sure they’d dried up to dust in the bitter cold we’ve had. But they all had supple green underneath. They made it. I wanted to hug them all.
It always reminds of the Bette Midler song. “Just remember, in the winter, far beneath the bitter snow lies the seed that with the sun’s love in the spring becomes the rose.” Setting aside for a moment the fact that roses don’t really grow from seeds, for the most part, I love that song (and that line). Even in the darkest moments, hope is building, sometimes underground, sometimes where you can’t see it. But there it is.
Thank you, garden.
