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?)

I’m probably not alone in preferring to work indoors whenever it’s cold and wet outside; and in going absolutely bonkers if I can’t get outside whenever the sun is warm and the air is soft and lovely. But from now until late May, June we have to be in both places – in the greenhouse and out in the gardens – at once so we made sure to grab for the first opportunity to get outside while the getting was deliciously pleasant.

Yesterday, after potting on a few trays of last fall’s tender-perennial cuttings, Mary and Pat (Florabundas), and Gail and I went out to tidy up the Moon Gate bed. It’s so much easier to cut epimedium and lily turf (Liriope muscari) back before they start to grow and luckily they hadn’t yet. – Of course it’s not so easy to cut back liriope if there are miniature daffodils growing incognito inside of it… (Note to self: don’t plant drifts of liriope too near drifts of miniature daffodils ever again. I would give half a thought to cutting the liriope back in the fall and forgo its winter-evergreen-ness if I didn’t enjoy a challenge.) Next on the list is rose pruning – climbers first. After that, in the next couple of weeks, we’ll get going on to cleaning winter out of all of the gardens.

It’s time.

We’re not the only ones to take advantage of the first opportunities – bees were out working the open snowdrops; birds are LOUD; and something – several things? – is filling my face with pollen. As powerful as my sneezes are, I could guess that I’m not providing an efficient pollination service for these plants. The wind-born really don’t need me or anyone else to help. (What is blooming so invisibly perniciously right now? – Arborvitae? Cryptomeria? Yew? Incidentally, there was a really interesting article about allergenic street trees in the NYTimes last year. I still have the deciduous wind-borns to look forward to… )

Have you had your first fair weather opportunity to get out in the garden yet? What have you done so far? (Is anyone else plagued by their favorite season?)

Yesterday’s snow flurries and bitter chill felt a little like a set back but March still somehow manages to take another two steps forward for every one back. It’s no longer enough to patrol the garden for changes only once a week. It’s much better (March better?) to take a daily march (enough with the puns) outside and goodness knows the timing is really perfect for taking a break from the horrifying headlines that I can’t seem to look away from when I’m cooped up indoors.

If I didn’t scan the gardens every day now I could have easily missed the Iris reticulata that only blooms for a millisecond (i.e. a week) and I might not catch the Lonicera fragrantissima, which refused to burst in time for Garden Bloggers Bloom Day today (hosted as always by Carol of May Dreams Gardens.) I predict it will take another day or so of sun before its scent lures our rare early spring visitors to a forgotten corner of the Rose Garden, and gives us something to do with our noses while we prune the roses (next week).

No one could miss the witch hazels that have been in bloom for a month but I wouldn’t want to lose another single day with them. Honestly, I don’t know why anyone would wait for forsythia when there are witch hazels (Hamamelis spp.) in February, Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas) – open just enough today to count as blooming – and spice bush (Lindera benzoin) on its way, all for earlier cheerful yellowness.

And getting down – way down- to take a look at the crocus is an excellent warm-up for all of the getting down and up again we’re going to have to start doing so soon now, she says while massaging her stiff lower back…

Are you marching right along with March? How about your garden?