SPRING ON YOUR KNEES

Spring on your knees…

One might say that “Spring is bustin’ out all over…” even though it may be that you have to crawl around on hands and knees to find it—the first snowdrops (on the 8^th); the species crocus “Tommasinus” and “Susiana;” the earliest daffodil, Rjinveld’s ‘Early Sensation’, and the species N. pseudonarcissus, with thousands more swelling buds in flower borders in garden and yard; Dutch crocus in brilliant yellows, purples, whites, stripes, and lavender; the purple Iris reticulata, and the sweet Iris ‘Katharine Hodgkins’.  But then we can check things at knee level—Erica ‘Springwood White’; the first yellow blooms of winter jasmine, and hellebores in wine and white (on the 8^th); then at waste level, winter honeysuckle, Lonicera fragrantissima, winter spike hazel, Corylopsis spicata, Daphne mezereum, and the first buds showing color on winter forsythia, Abelliophyllum distichum.  And then raise your eyes still more, you might require magnifying lens, but there at eye level there are indeed pink and white buds swelling on the fruit trees—apple, apricot, plum, peach.  And overhead, the red tinge of maple blooms swelling.

If you are one who raises both peonies and rhubarb, then you may have noticed as I have that the first stout red buds pushing through the earth are virtually identical and show up on the same day.  Find one, look for the other.  Here, it was Saturday, the day before the vernal equinox. 

Sensing rejuvenation of spirit and body on my walk, surrounded by the fresh scents of the blooms and the soil, the gentle warm breeze, the bird song in the trees, the vines, and the shrubs, and preceded down the garden path by a fat brown toad.   Ahhh...

Inevitably, with temps reaching 70 and gentle warm breezes, I was drawn to sow the first seeds.  In a 4x10’ bed in the kitchen garden, I sowed radishes, lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, carrots, sorrel, kale, parsley, chervil, and cilantro.  And calendula.  Warmed in the sun for a day or so before being pelted last night by thunder burst.  Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.  They may not thrive, but if they do…