This spring is feeling exactly like one of those Jack-in-the-box wind-up toys. The crank handle has been winding … winding … winding … winding until just when I gave up really expecting it anymore, it POPPED open. The last couple of days I have been having the same kind of adrenaline spasm I used to love (and dread a little bit) as a kid.

It just seems like spring has been going along at a measured pace and even holding back a little. But after a rainy spell and a couple of actually warm days, spring has shifted into a higher gear. The daffodils are just about all out here now, early and late at once and the early ones, if you look closely, are finally beginning to go by. Tulips are colored buds one day and open the next. Leaves are emerging on trees and shrubs and looking almost full-sized by the afternoon. Quick-quick.

We’ve been going along too; steadily keeping up and holding back. Until today. Now it seems as if everything needs to happen all at once – yesterday. We’re getting plant orders in, shifting plants out of the greenhouse and others in, and we’ve started to plant and transplant in the gardens as if there’s no tomorrow.

But of course there is a tomorrow. Just because spring is picking up the pace doesn’t necessarily mean we gardeners will fall behind. To me, the must-do list seems impossibly long only right up until we start doing it. And while the work always takes less time than I think it will, spring also tends to linger longer than it ever feels like it will. There’s still plenty of time to breathe and enjoy it.

Have you felt a Jack-in-the-box jolt too? Do you feel like you can keep up with spring’s pace?

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?)

Happy Valentine’s Day!

I think there’s a part of every gardener who chooses to disbelieve, ignore or at the very least push on the arbitrary seeming zone boundaries laid by the USDA. But then every few years we get a day or two in the winter that makes us cringe for our “marginally hardy” plants. When I got to work this morning it was -1°F with a bitter wind blowing out of the north. To me and to some of our plants, that’s cold. It’s hard for me to believe that if we truly are in the zone 6a that some zip code zone finders say we are (others say we’re a 7 and now I’m really confused) it would be possible for it to get even colder. -10°? No thank you. That’s just not for me and even -1° is cutting it close for our Aucuba japonica and Harlequin glorybower (Clerodendrum trichotomum) among other things.

But actually I’m not worried. It’s possible to live in the zone now and again and still be in denial of it. There’s a good heavy blanket of snow protecting everything (at least those things that weren’t smashed by it like the poor Rose Garden daphnes…) and we’ve had longer stretches of bitter cold than this in years past and the survivors survived. If worse comes to worse the tender plants will die back to the ground and start fresh. The Clerodendron, in fact, is only protected by a low stone wall by the North Garden at the top of the Great Lawn and has not died back even in the worst of winters. (Was it January in 2004 or 2005 that never rose above the teens?)

Have you been in your zone yet this winter? Are you worried about any plants?

As much as I love and appreciate the meditative quiet of a good snow fall, we’ve had a lot of opportunity to meditate lately and I’m starting to feel a little restless. In order to shake off the calm I’ve turned the radio up high, shelved the picture-less books and am reveling in any bright colors I can find. I’m paying particular attention to the catalogs printed in full color on glossy stock and taking breaks for hits of high color in the greenhouse. I even ventured outside (briefly – brrr!) to find a bright spot out there.

Are you looking for bright colors right now too? Where are you finding them?