Spiking temperatures in the heat of the sun are making us sweat and bitter winds give us the chills. Add to that the frenetic frantics of  “gotta get the gardens cleaned out NOW!” coupled with a lethargy bordering on catatonia that sets in after a day spent out: it feels for all the world like a fever. I’d say we haven’t acclimated to the season yet except that the season itself hasn’t settled out. Compared to this time last year when we had record floods and warmth, this March – perhaps compared to any recent years has been dry – the ground is actually cracked in places – and cold. We have an April Fool’s snow in the forecast and we’re all beginning to speculate that one of these days maybe we’ll pass straight from winter into summer.

But regardless of the vagaries of March (and April) weather, plants and wildlife are as feverish for spring as we are. Despite the cold winds and the little hints of snow and even the lack of real rain everything is emerging right according to plan – perhaps not 2 weeks early this year like it was last year, but inch by inch, on schedule. A good thing too because regardless of the weather, at a certain point we gardeners can’t restrain ourselves any longer from cleaning winter out of the gardens. Here at Blithewold we have the added incentive of getting everything tidy before Daffodil Days, which start a mere week and a half from now on April 9th (and run through May 1st.)

Gail, a couple of the Deadheads, and I cut back the North Garden yesterday and we know the timing is right because tiny kitten Alchemilla mollis (Lady’s mantle) are waking beneath the scrunk of last year’s leaves, caryopteris and perovskia buds are swollen and as usual, the ‘Ballerina’ roses have even begun to break – sooner than any other roses on the property. Bees are out working the scilla (do you have any early flowers for the bees?), and Gail and I were only willing to call it quits after encountering the largest spider this side of the tropics in one of our tub-trugs. Today the Rockettes cleaned up the Rock Garden where Pasque flowers were showing fuzz, tight whorls of corydalis foliage are loosening, and we all were on the lookout for hidden gems (hellebore flowers  hiding in the old epimedium leaves) and camouflaged creatures. It was a real eye-test to spot the nest inside the spirea. (Needless to say, that particular shrub didn’t get much of a haircut. – Anyone know if the nest would be this year’s or last year’s?)

Are you feeling feverish too?

Spring took two steps back last night. We didn’t get as much accumulation as predicted but it sure felt like winter. Even the birds, who have been so LOUD lately, observed the snow’s silence this morning. But like all truly spring things, the snow was ephemeral: as pretty as a picture (or several pictures) and gone by noon.

(hover over for captions and click on for a better view.)

Are winter and spring doing a waltz in your garden too?

Like any gardener, I am desperate to know the names. As much as labeling the plants in the gardens is a thorn in my side (they’re photo-wrecking shiny eyesores and no matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to keep up) I fully sympathize with interested visitors who inevitably gravitate to the unmarked plants. The name – Latin and common – reveals all sorts of mystery behind curtain number one.

I used to sit here with the enormous American Horticultural Society A-Z encyclopedia of Garden Plants on my lap and now its spine is held on with painter’s tape and the pages are loose. But it hasn’t been updated since 2004 and in an attempt to replace it, I ordered the more recently updated Royal Horticultural Society A-Z (2008). That encyclopedia is very nicely divided into two less-cumbersome volumes tucked in a pretty sleeve but I wish I had realized that because it was compiled for European gardeners, it wouldn’t have zone information. And zone hardiness (along with basic cultural requirements, size, flowering time, maintenance needs, country of origin, etc) is one of the things I’m dying to know.

Nowadays I pull more books off our library shelf – such as Dirr’s Manual of Woody Landscape Plants, Annuals and Tender Plants for North American Gardens by Wayne Winterrowd, and Weeds of the Northeast by Uva Neal and DiTomaso. I also study nursery catalogs like Rare Find, Broken Arrow, Forest Farm, and North Creek just to name a few; and I check websites like Avant Gardens (since their catalog is on line now), Missouri Botanical Garden PlantFinder and the UConn Plant Database. By cross referencing, I probably end up with a much closer look behind the curtain.

As a new year begins in the gardens, I’ve renewed my annual resolve to keep up with the labeling and to that end they’ve been freshly organized (thank you, Anne!) and will no longer rest in unruly piles down cellar and poking out of my in-basket (thanks to Gail for opening a cubby!)

I already know you have to know the names too, so what is on your reference desk? Do you label your plants? (in the garden or more discretely somehow?)