Sunday, April 12, 2009

Spring's Ups and Downs

I love spring. I love the little surprises that pop out of the ground – signs of life in the brown landscape. Spring offers hope; new beginnings in the garden. However spring also brings a mixed bag when it comes to the weather in the northeast. While others in warmer zones post about growing gardens, it has been cold here and my plants are slow to emerge.
Strong winds this spring have made it seem even colder. It’s not fun to see a newly raked pile of leaves dancing around the yard. My neighbor has a large Catalpa tree with foot long seed pods. These pods wave gracefully in the tree all winter and fall to the ground in the spring. I’m thankful to have a great neighbor willing to rake up the pods before they blow into my gardens.
Spring bulbs and flowers are a treat. I welcome the bright faces and colors of the daffodils, squill and Hellebores. I wish I had more of these spring bloomers to help bring my gardens to life.
Spring is such a tease in New England. A few warm days, a few cold days, and then warm again. These thermostat gyrations will last about seven more weeks; long weeks after a very long winter. So how do I keep myself going? I make plans on how I will change my gardens in 2009. I create plant lists and shop online. I read garden blogs and visit garden forums and try to live through the experiences of others - until the threat of frost has passed and the real gardening begins.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Hostabuff, welcome back! Glad your garden is waking up...once my hellebores bloomed, everything else followed quickly!..especially weeds! Time to get to work out there :)

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