HINTS OF SPRING
The calendar says that we are about halfway through winter, but I know that spring has just started. It isn’t a date; it’s a feeling. Just as winter really starts on the day in early October when the butterflies vanish, spring starts on the day when you can smell the thawing earth. The signs are apparent. Today, while pulling things out of the refrigerator, I noticed that the hyacinth bulb I deposited there months ago has begun to sprout. I took out the forcing jar that holds the bulb and put it on the kitchen windowsill. Outside the temperature is finally high enough to have banished the last traces of snow, and the low spots are muddy. I heard one of the resident male cardinals singing what I presume to be his mating song.
Taking advantage of the thaw, I ventured out in a windstorm to begin the long overdue pruning of the forty or so rosebushes that dot my beds and borders. Many have grown to heroic size, with plenty of thorny canes that whip around in the wind. If I prune now, while the roses are still sleepy and only mulling over the idea of breaking dormancy, they will have healthier growth and better blooms when the warm weather comes. Unfortunately the canes are thorny in any season, and even if I wear gloves, the roses wreak their revenge on me. I will pick the ends of prickles out of my fingers for days.
When the entire garden looks disgusting, as it does at this time of year, it is much easier to see the possibilities. Fool that I am, I want even more roses, despite the fact that I lack available bed space for them. Looking at the desiccated remains of the giant miscanthus grass on the sunny south side of my front yard, I wonder if it is really the right plant for the space. I bought it at the height of the grass craze and it has behaved as if the soil under it is laced with steroids. Every year it grows to be at least seven feet tall, and its diameter has increased to nearly six feet. It is tedious to tend, and the tall stalks need to be cut back to ground level every spring. I also have to corral it with garden twine every year in June to keep it from flopping over onto other plants and the path that runs by it. A rosebush or two would make much better-mannered garden denizens and would not require the corralling and cutting down. On the other hand, digging up the miscanthus will be about as easy, painless and fulfilling as having root canal work. There is also the question of whether I simply discard the miscanthus or install it somewhere else. At least I have a good eight weeks to ponder this weighty issue.
Hope springs eternal, even on a February day in the middle of a major recession when the wind is gusting up to forty miles per hour. As bits of litter, garden debris and plastic trash can lids hurtled by me, I also hunted for signs of the early crocuses, snowdrops and hellebores. I reconnoitered in the muddy corner of the back yard that is home to a winter-blooming jasmine or Jasminum nudiflorum. The crocuses are about one inch out of the ground, and the early hellebores have lots of fat buds, but the snowdrops are nowhere to be found yet. The jasmine buds are also swelling and in a week or so, I will clip off some of the longer branches and bring them into the house. The branches are not as showy as forced forsythia or flowering quince, but they are a small, welcome taste of spring.
I have big plans for this year that involve moving full grown shrubs, rearranging plants, dividing mature specimens and further refining my planting scheme. Needless to say, I make these kinds of big plans every year, but this year, for some reason, I feel much more fearless about my ideas and their execution. Having prepared the garden for a wedding and a garden tour eighteen months ago, I know that I can please other people. Now, I can be fearless about pleasing myself. I am what I am–a plant collector, rather than a disciplined garden designer–at least on my own property. I refuse to feel guilty about that any more. I will let others make entire gardens of swathes of just three plant varieties. Those who trim their hedges with manicure scissors can keep their pristine mini-parterres and their meticulously clipped shrubs. My garden is going to be an even happier, more highly personal mélange. It will be full of flowers, including those that are purposely planted and those that are completely self-sown. I will embrace serendipity–plants popping up wherever they please–as long as the crabgrass and onion grass don’t participate. Species like those, that don’t play well with others, will still be unwelcome.
Above all, on my property, gardening will never feel like work. A friend of mine once said that gardening is the next best thing to doing nothing at all. I intend to keep it that way.