Daffodil Days start tomorrow and I’m thrilled to report that some daffodils (and a few other spring ephemerals) have arrived early for the festivities. And thousands more are on their way… Every hour from now on that the sun shines a few more will open to brighten the woods and paths. Gail and I still predict that their peak will be closer to next weekend than this but in the meantime, red-winged blackbirds are calling, there’s a blue haze of Siberian squill and periwinkle in the Bosquet, skunk cabbage are out down by the water garden, and Spring is really starting to look spring-like all over the property. (You know what I mean.)

This week we and our volunteers worked more to tidy up in the Display Garden (which from here on in I will refer to as the Idea Garden because this is where we try new plants, combinations, philosophies and hope that visitors will be inspired to take our best ideas home). We spent the coldest, windiest day in the sunny greenhouse potting on last fall’s cuttings, transplanting seedlings, and starting more seeds. (Tomatoes, basil, amaranth and celosia mean summer is coming!) And yesterday we pruned the Rose Garden roses (hard – now’s the time) and almost finished preparing the climbers for their outrageous June show. (Our hands look like we caught the pox or tangled with tigers.) So we’re officially ready for the season to keep going the way it’s going. Slow and steady. Our cat-scratched fingers are crossed that we won’t see snow again until maybe December… and we’re perfectly willing to wait until June for any 80° days.

What’s your latest spring update? Please send along a link if you’ve written about it and/or taken pictures.

I was only away from Blithewold for a week (and not very far away either — on staycation at home) but it’s amazing how much happened here in that time. Spring happened. Almost. The start of it anyhow. At least inside the greenhouse. The propagation house is chock-a-block full of seed trays — it’s hard to believe we can make more room but Dick, vegetable gardener extraordinaire, was in today to sow some more. And like a clown car, we stuffed four more trays (of eggplants and peppers) on the benches. The sweet peas are all up — and uneaten by mice. Such a pretty sight! The whole greenhouse in fact, is gorgeous. The scent of the Ponderosa lemon in full bloom is enough to knock me over. And our jasmine, which is only about a third open yet, is so strong it’s almost too much. But I’ll take it, breathing deeply, especially since I’ve been away from it. I realize now that I’ve been taking the greenhouse’s early spring totally for granted and even on a raw day like today, it’s kind of heaven in there. (If you’re nearby, please visit. Especially if you’re feeling as demoralized by the weather as I am.)

Outside, since we have another layer of slushy snow on the ground and are being pelted with freezing rain, it’s hard to believe that spring’s official start is only a day away. But there are more signs showing than there were a week ago, mostly in the bed just outside the Rose Garden’s moongate. I took these pictures yesterday… Click on any of the pictures for a bigger view or hover over for the caption.

With weather like today’s, we can be sure that spring – meaning the daffodils – won’t be extra early like they were last year. Probably right on time. We hope. (Did I hear more snow for next week? Say it isn’t so!) We’re opening for the season, snow or shine, on April 2 this year. And then Daffodils Days start up, whether still budded or blooming, on Saturday, April 6. Is March blooming in your garden? How about inside?

Waiting for the Chiltern seed order – which included a dozen varieties of sweet peas – to arrive tested our faith (and taught me a little lesson about putting so many precious eggs in one basket). But Gail and I remained as optimistic as gardeners, and didn’t the package finally land in our mailbox like a little miracle the day after we opened up bench space! We always sow the sweet peas first, during the last week or two of February so that they’ll be sturdy enough to set outside and plant by the last week in April.

Every year I worry all over again that the seeds I sow won’t germinate (and that’s partly why I prefer Beverly, one of the Rockettes, to do it – that, and I love her company). It just seems so unlikely that a whole blooming plant would ever spring from such a tiny package – even if it’s as fat and perfect as these sweet pea seeds – with or without help from me.

Gail and I started some others with the reputation of taking an age to germinate and a few like corydalis and primroses that need alternating weeks in the fridge and out of it. — It’s no wonder I doubt seeds when there’s trickery involved… But unless the seeds are no longer living – some are viable for only a short time after ripening while others can remain dormant indefinitely – they’re hardwired to grow soon(ish) after we trip their trigger by tucking them into moist soil. At least that’s what I remind myself around this time every year. All will be well.

Spring requires the same leap of faith. That buds will stretch into flowers, like the witch hazels already did, and that the birds will sing. A more confident friend reassured me this morning that I didn’t hallucinate hearing a red-winged blackbird’s call. It is, in fact, time for them to come back. Like clockwork. So despite a chill wind again from the north and snow in the forecast, spring is on its way. — Isn’t it?

More changes are afoot in the potting shed than just a remodel and reorganization. We are entering the modern age finally and ordering seeds on line rather than sending them off by mail. But even though we’ve decided to embrace technology for the sake of faster gratification than waiting for checks to be issued and the mail sent both ways, I still think reading a paper catalog is easier and more fun than staring at web pages. –That said, I can understand why some plant and seed companies have gone entirely on line and I applaud them for not wasting trees, ink, and postage on me when clearly the world is moving away from those things. So for however long it takes for the rest of us to prefer the feeling of an e-reader in our paws rather than a bound book, paper catalogs will have a welcome place on my lap.

Last year I placed our first order (in my time) with Chiltern Seeds in England. I searched on line for what we wanted — certain grasses and sweet peas that weren’t available through our usual sources — and was only mildly annoyed when some of their plants were listed without pictures. After all, a google images search is only a tab away. But this year they sent us a paper catalog. At first I was overwhelmed by it because the skinny onion-skin pages hold 4000+ plant descriptions, all but 9 without pictures! But after flicking through quickly, I started reading from the beginning and found the reward: tucked here and there amongst perfectly illustrative descriptions is humor, personality, and interesting information.

I learned that Dispsacus fullonum, which I have been calling Fuller’s teasel (because that’s what its species name implies) is in fact “common teasel”. The teasel actually used by fullers to card wool is Dipsacus sativus, whose dried flower heads “are a miracle of nature” with ” hundreds of tiny, stiff, downward-turned hooks amazingly and geometrically arranged.”  The description of Eryngium planum ‘Blue Glitter’ made me nod and snort because “the writer likes this one!” and after calling the flower heads “innumerable,” he actually counted 85 on the stem on his desk. I never noticed before that Silphium lacinatum orients its leaves to the poles. (I also didn’t know it’s called compass plant, pilot weed, and polar plant.) So cool. And I loved that towards the end the writer looked like he was getting a little punchy. The description for Viola ‘Cats’ begins,

“It is no secret that the writer likes his cats: as he pens these words, there’s a white porcelain cat glowering down at him from the mantlepiece warning him against making purrfectly awful puns about purrfect faces or even suggesting having a purr of these lovely Pansies in pots outside your front door. So he won’t!”

Like turning the last page of a good book, I was a little sad to finish that catalog. But we placed a big order and have a whole season of our own opinions about those plants – mostly sweet peas and primroses – to look forward to.

Do you still read plant and seed catalogs cover to cover? Do you have a favorite?

A comment from Kira on my last post echoes a sentiment I read recently in an article by Tovah Martin in Horticulture Magazine and something I’m feeling the crush of too: we’ve had a long enough break from the garden. Isn’t a month or two around the holidays plenty of time before we start feeling the pull of plants again? That’s why Tovah so smartly forces spring bloomers inside. And that’s why Kira (one of our volunteers, incidentally), Gail and I and probably the entire population of gardeners exiled indoors devour every word in every seed catalog. Starting about now, we cannot wait for spring.

I suspect I’d be more interested in winter – because I usually love it – if last week’s snowfall hadn’t parked on the garden like a Mack truck. My hopes of seedheads poking prettily up through winter snows were laid flat. Now I can almost see now the virtue in cutting everything back in fall because why not? if it isn’t going to add loveliness to our winter view. But I  have to remember it isn’t just for us. The birds don’t care what it looks like, so we’ll keep keeping as much standing for them as we can.

As gloomy as I’m suddenly feeling about winter, if spring really was right around the corner, I’d probably say I wasn’t ready after all. Gail and I still need the time to go through catalogs and attend classes (maybe bee school for me this year) and even though I’m no good at waiting (a whole week between Downton Abbey episodes makes me crazy) I know that anticipation will sweeten spring’s arrival. Meanwhile there’s nothing to do for it but to go out and find the pretty in winter and practice Zen-like patience. I’m glad to report that it was easier than I thought it would be to enjoy winter this morning as the fog lifted off the snow. Even tipped over and smashed, the garden was as pretty as I could ever hope it would be.

Is the wait of winter weighing heavily on you – or your garden – too?