SPRING 2019 - After Ice & Floods, it's Peel off your Sweater & Soak in the Sun!

After winter’s ravages, I shuddered at the seeming irretrievable hot mess before me and could barely imagine the return of my beloved garden. Then the sun came out, tendrils appeared and I started clearing the debris. My devoted, talented & versatile hubby pruned & cleared for weeks as I nursed a fierce cold. A sign on my office door says ‘Magic Happens!’, I believe it! 

 I see the lupines I planted in the summer coming up, everything is budding and I remember all the changes I made last season.  It was akin to the cacophony of an orchestra warming up before the symphony begins. We can clear the detritus and let Nature take over. Isn’t this the theme of our lives? Overwhelm & immobility leading to Rebirth & Joy!

A spate of glorious sunny, peel off your sweater at noon days and Spring in the Northwest envelops our senses.  All the neighbors are busy pruning and picking up debris from the now distant memory snowstorm.  The exhilaration of the jigsaw placement of plants excites me.  We prune the ornamental plum, the camilla and the gigantic yellow species rose all of whom were overgrown to the max.  I watch a great video about spring divisions of dahlias and plan to go for it in later this month.  Spring makes me think of my dear beloved sister Corinne Nanette of blessed memory who’s love for dahlias began when I sent her a catalogue and a gift order years ago. In NYC where she lived they are lifted every fall.  Here with our generally mild winters we can leave them in the ground and I’ve become complacent ignoring them for too long.  Now there are dozens of bulbs in a mass, all squeezed together and hardly bearing. Time to separate the overgrown heap and find the “eyes” or first growth of bulbs that can be planted afresh.

Each section of the garden is it’s own neighborhood.  Like the quartiers of Paris, each arrondissement or neighborhood has it’s own flavor and orientation.  Each is a unique zone. Above the pure simplicity of trilliums. 

Wow, before we know it, it’s raining buckets like we haven’t seen in decades.  Flood warnings…Now as Passover & Easter approach the weather is settling down.  The peonies have been growing an inch a day. Looking through my camera is a supernatural gift from the Creator to us earthlings.

A few months ago I spotted a humungous planter at the eclectic treasure trove that is Bring Recyling in Springfield, OR and knew it was the perfect container to facilitate the transplanting of an apple tree I had bought for my grandkids several seasons ago. To my amazement the oft unwatered and forgotten tree was still alive in its small pot. Instant project!  Here 3 of my 4 grandchildren are absorbed in transplanting the tree with care and dedication!