Yesterday was the kind of day that made me feel very sorry for anyone stuck indoors. High 60s, sunny blue sky, birds singing, bees buzzing: Exactly the kind of short-sleeves day we all desperately crave when it’s hot as blazes or when it’s bone-chilling cold out. Exactly the kind of day best spent soaking up the warmth of the sun, sucking up the scent of the fragrant honeysuckle (Lonicera fragrantissima), and getting the garden cut back, and roses pruned and transplanted. Which is exactly how Gail, Tricia — our new garden intern, and I spent our day.

Your employer should thank me for suggesting that the very next time a day like that is forecast for a work day (tomorrow by the looks of it), you call in well and get your body outside. Disregard the calendar, quit worrying too much about the pendulum swinging, and cut back the buddleia, lespedeza and caryopteris. Go for it. It’s time and it will do you good to get out and enjoy it.

So what will you do on the next blue day? I’ll feel better if you tell me you’ll at least be able to open the windows, and will try to invent excuses, like a friend of mine did yesterday, to take some mini-walks around the neighborhood…

I also think it would be good for you — and good for your garden — to plan on taking another day off on Thursday, April 5 to attend a day of lectures on Planting for the Future by Doug Tallamy, author of Bringing Nature Home, and Warren Leach, brilliant landscape designer and co-owner of Tranquil Lake Nursery. I have heard both of them speak several times and they always keep me at the edge of my seat: Doug with his fervent call to arm our gardens with certain native plants in order to recreate a working ecosystem; and Warren with inspirational design ideas that show that environmentally friendly gardens can still be highly ornamental and sublimely lovely. Please come if you possibly can.

I know I’m going to start sounding like a broken record but I can’t help going on about how early everything is. I looked up the other day when I was walking my dog and noticed that the maple trees in town are blooming. A full month early according to my notes. Come on. Spring is breaking all over the place and the only thing we can do is try to keep up.

We asked garden volunteers to bundle up (it has been warm but wicked windy) to start working outside. This must be the earliest we’ve ever had to abandon the greenhouse work for later and we’re sort of smarting about that. But the Rose Garden and Moongate bed are tidied just in time for a steady trickle of early-bird visitors come to catch spring in its infancy. And although we might have gotten to the climbing roses as early as this before, they certainly weren’t breaking yet. At this rate we have to wonder if the roses’ June peak will fall in May instead.

If we had ever had a decent freeze, Fred and Dan wouldn’t have been able to break ground and be so far along with the North Garden redesign. We have temporarily relocated plants that are showing signs of taking off, so take it from us, if you will be doing any plant shifting this spring, you might as well get a jump on it and start now – particularly if you have shrubs or trees to move. Beat feet.

The weather is still going to do its usual diabolical March swing thing though. Unbelievably, given that yesterday was in the 60s, there’s a wee chance of snow in the forecast for tonight. So even though part of me is ready to throw out the calendar I have to remember that it’s March and slow down a minute. We’ll still follow our usual last-frost in mid-May planting schedule because you just never know with spring.

Are you making any adjustments to your spring schedule?

All of the advice you ever read about sowing seeds includes a suggestion to keep a record of what you’ve sown when. I’m pretty sure my head would explode if we didn’t keep track. We also try to record every good idea about the gardens before we forget them in separate books for each garden. In calendars we keep a daily record of the weather outside, what we’ve done all day and who has been in to help. Our calendars — and the blog — are invaluable for remembering whether last spring was the really rainy one or if it was 3 years back, and great for keeping us on track for pruning the roses and other seasonal must-do-nows. And I like to think of these things as an extension of Estelle Clements’ diligent, if sparsely worded, daily record of every happening at Blithewold while she was in residence with the family.

Over the last few years we have tried different methods for keeping track of our seed sowing. We used to simply write lists of what seeds were sown on a particular day, along with the seed source. One page (or two) per day. We could go back to previous years in the book to see what we sowed when but we didn’t keep track of germination timing, success rates and whether or not we liked the plants. Luckily Gail has a good memory for that stuff.

Last year we decided to try using Excel to keep track of all the plants in the garden, including seeds. I’m glad to have the data at my fingertips but it’s not easily accessible for everyone. So this year we’re going back to a book with some database inspired changes. Truth be told, I got the new template from our friend Pam (the self-described “propagating fool”) who got it from The Victory Garden.

In a grid notebook, we have lined out sections for plant, variety, source, quantity (I added that category), date seeded, date germinated, germination success, transplant date, planting out date, harvest date, and a wide space for comments. I know we’ll be good about writing down the date seeded because we’re already in the habit. As we get busier, it will be interesting to see if we’re able to make time to keep track of the rest of it. So far so good but then I’m always enthused to use a new tool at least until it doesn’t feel new anymore.

Do you write it all down? Have you ever used one of those 10 year calendars? — I think that might be next on my record-keeping wishlist. What’s on yours?

Nature has her own ways of doing things and her own timing. There’s no predicting it. — It hadn’t occurred to us last August when we ordered bulbs that squirrels would be acorn deprived and tulip-hungry this year. We had no idea after so many years mouse-free in the greenhouse that they’d be back. And we had no way of knowing when setting the date for Daffodil Days last year that they might bloom extra-early this year. Nature keeps us on our toes and all we can do is go with the flow and enjoy the ride.

There’s no fighting the likelihood of an early spring (despite another dusting of snow) so we’re going with it and rescheduling our celebrations to (hopefully) more closely match Nature’s timing. We will hustle to be open for the season and Daffodil Days starting April 1.

As for this being the year of the rodent here at Blithewold, all we can do is roll with the punches and get smarter. We’ve ordered extra spring bloomers to fill in any tulip-shaped gaps. (The squirrels didn’t eat them all so we’ll be sure to spray or dust the survivors with deer repellent.) And we’re doing our darnedest to keep the mice out of the seeds by covering the seedling trays with weighted upside-down trays. Fingers crossed. And I’m sorry to say it but because we can’t grow the gardens we’re known for without these plants, we have also brought out the big guns: poison bait. No dogs allowed in the greenhouse until further notice. (And after that, by invitation only, as per usual.)

When change is good it’s easy to adapt to it. Assistant grounds manager, Dan Christina has joined Dick in managing the vegetable garden. He has drawn a beautiful plan, dug trenches for the asparagus that Dick has been asking for forever, started working on a brilliant array of staking methods and support structures, and will help keep us all to a schedule of extra-productive succession planting and harvests. We’re pretty excited.

Any changes, welcome or not, in your garden? Will you have to hustle to be ready for an early spring too?