Nature is out there making all sorts of promises and I intend to hold her to them. I am not afraid of spring. I know what’s coming. My eyes are open and I’m ready for it.

Some might say that spring is – or at least ought to be – a gardener’s least favorite season. There’s too much to do and not enough daylight to do it. The possibilities are so endless that a gardener could conceivably become paralyzed with indecision and the coming season holds so much potential that we could easily feel overwhelmed.

Whatever.

I love spring the very best – always have. If it weren’t for spring, there would be no reason for summer, fall, and winter. What would be the point? Besides, is there anything better than the spring tease of new growth busting out? – Much sexier than the undressing of fall – though I love that the very best too. I know that the work through the next few months will be mentally and physically challenging at times and the hours long but I can honestly say that I’m looking forward to it.

The crocuses are up at Blithewold – look carefully and tread lightly – especially in the grassy vicinity of the Osage orange by the North Garden. Stinking hellebores (Helleborus foetidus) have started to open by the Moongate; tulip foliage tips have emerged (don’t tell the deer); and of course buds everywhere are swelling. The weekend forecast is for near 50°F and sunny. Spring is a promise. Bring it on.

Maybe I was too hard on March. Last week, like a miracle, a light switched on during my morning dog-walk. And today dawned with blue skies and sunshine. Maybe March isn’t going to be as dreary as I thought?

Then again, day-light savings is coming up (March 14) and will throw my morning back into the night and there’s snow in the forecast for later today and through most of the rest of the week. I guess the deal with March is that it forces us to not take any of the good stuff for granted and to appreciate every single sunny moment to the fullest. And at least the sun, when it’s out, is starting to feel warmish.

Gail and I took advantage of today’s sunny moment (which lasted pretty much the whole day after all) to search for signs of spring – it’s evident in the 4” high daffodils, emerging tulips (- got to get the deer-off on!), the red buds on maples and yellow haze of willows, and a rumor spread by a favorite visitor about a crocus blooming somewhere on the grounds. Gail cut some more forsythia – it shouldn’t take long to force, maybe a week. And we spent most of the day organizing the greenhouse and making space for seeds, which we’ll start sowing in earnest this week. (Starting with perennials, biennials like foxglove, some cabbages and kale, calendula, snapdragons… Dick’s onions, leeks, and artichokes are already coming up.)

Meanwhile, Fred and Dan have been diligently pruning trees and shrubs all over the property. The best time for dormant pruning is any above-freezing day before the buds break. They are not ones to wait for sweater weather, like me…

All in all, there’s plenty to work on, lots to look forward to and I appreciate a slow start to spring – and I really shouldn’t knock March (- it might knock back). Have you started sowing seeds? Are you bad-mouthing March or getting busy with the pruning instead?

We are poised on the edge of the pit of despair (a.k.a. March). I know a lot of people choose to remove themselves from danger by visiting the tropics at this time of year. While I generally prefer to spend plane fare on plants I have to say that it’s probably a good idea, every few years anyway, to give yourself a real change of scene. Putting at least a good 1000 miles between yourself and your garden can only recharge and reinvigorate your interest in it. And there’s no better time than March because it’s the most diabolical month – generally too awful to be outside and with cabin fever inside reaching critical levels, March always feels like it’s about 365 days longer than it is. Plus winter interest is only interesting for so long. (And I’m someone who loves tree bark.)

I do plan to put about 3000 miles between me and my garden (and Blithewold) later in the month but in the 102 days between now and then I need to focus on finding a few things that might keep me from falling down the rabbit hole. Sweet peas is one. Sweet peas equal spring and really all I have to do to maintain my equanimity is look forward to a sweetly scented June. We sowed 18 varieties yesterday. We went ahead and used the cow pots after trying a little soak test. The pots, even dry, pull apart more easily than peat and much more easily than coir. The one we have in soaking has definitely softened and we figure that we’ll just remove the pots when we plant like we used to with the peat pots. Sweet pea roots don’t like to be disturbed but we disturbed them for years with no ill effects.

Projects are another thing that can keep me from brooding so it’s a good thing that we still have gardens to design. I did preliminary sketches for a couple of the beds a month ago but now that the seeds and plants have been ordered, we can draw out some plans and plug our final wish list in.  It’s all about looking forward. And I’m still catching up on book, magazine and blog reading and am so grateful for that kind of escape right now. I’m all for being in the moment – you know me – but sometimes, like when it’s raining (snowing, sleeting, hailing, squishing) it’s more inspiring to spend the moment in a whole other time or place at least mentally.

Another project on my plate is putting me back in the moment the same way writing the blog does and hopefully will be the same kind of medicine. My first article as the new garden columnist for East Bay Newspapers was printed this week.

What will you do you do to stay sane through March?

Everyone deserves something sparkly – or at least shiny – in time for Valentine’s Day. Wasn’t it nice of Mother Nature to give us her latest gift – a 14 karat white-gold with diamonds storm (known in my household as The Apocalblyzzard That Wasn’t). We only had a couple-four inches of snow here but it was heavy and wet and even after 2 days of sun, it is still clinging to tree trunks and sparkling like jewelry. (I took the pictures first thing on the morning after. Hover over for captions and click on for a closer look.)

And what’s Valentine’s Day (weekend) without a love story? I’m not sure what made me stop and turn my gaze way upwards but after a moment’s reverie I spotted our resident pair of hawks (we think they’re Red-tailed) gazing back down at me. Red-tailed hawks generally mate for life and our female should be laying a clutch of eggs in the next month or two. We have seen them circling around a bit lately screeching and that, according to the wikipedia entry, is foreplay. — On that note, I’ll just wish you all a Happy Valentine’s Day (weekend)!

As you all know, this past Tuesday was the Feast of the Presentation of the Prophet Phil. I celebrated and paid homage as usual but I think I might be losing faith in The Groundhog.

The sun was shining in Punxutawney, PA and Phil saw his shadow. According to tradition that means we’ll have 6 more weeks of winter weather. But here in Bristol, it was cloudy that day. If our woodchuck, a lay rodent, had been ceremoniously yanked from his burrow, it wouldn’t have been the sun sending him scurrying back to bed. Not only that, but other signs seem, to me, to be pointing directly at spring’s corner. Just this week the birds  started to sing again – I heard mourning doves this morning – and the late winter, spring-predicting flowers are showing their colors. The sun is high enough to warm the greenhouse and I could swear that the silhouette of the trees has just changed – I think they’ve filled out a little. I prefer to think that spring is right around the corner – my gut says it’s only 6 weeks away.

Do you believe (in) Punxutawney Phil or the other indicators of spring?

Gail and I need a little more time to gather thoughts before I dive into posts about the decade’s best plants. Because I ventured outside on some of the chilliest days to grab at pictures with my mittens on, I’ll give those to you today instead. You might want to make a cup of tea and put on your thickest sweater before looking…

Even though I’ve never considered this my favorite season, I have realized that I am very grateful to live in a climate that has a true winter. I need a real break from the garden to recharge my brain and body. – And if it was warm enough to work outside I would have trouble staying in.

A month or two ago I couldn’t really imagine having any fresh ideas for these gardens or even my own (which I think about constantly even while I’m at work). I was fried. But after only a couple of weeks of intensive indoor regrouping, I have enough thoughts in my head that if I don’t write them down they’re likely to be pushed off the shelf by the next thing. I definitely need help to kick-start the idea process. Before allowing ourselves even a glance at seed catalogs, Gail and I always take a look through the year’s gardening magazines, which we hadn’t yet given ourselves time to read, and we pull out the ancient back issues too along with our favorite books. – Because everything old is new again. And of course I am catching up on blog reading. Amazingly, it doesn’t take much for the ideas to start germinating. A plant suggestion here, a photo there and I’m already completely jazzed to get back in the garden.

Do you take a winter intermission too? Self or climate imposed? Where do you find the seeds for your ideas?

Why is it that, on this date every year, time always seems to have flown by? Looking back at calendar entries and scrolling through pictures I can start to recall interminable weeks of rain and quite a few endlessly beautiful and eventful days. But it’s only when I think about all of the changes in the gardens that it really starts to feel like a very full year has passed. To celebrate 2009 here are 9 of my favorite plants that were, in one way or another, new this year (or if you’re reading this tomorrow, they were new last year). In alphabetical order:

Agave americana This plant was not new to us but planting it in the garden was. And despite the excessively rainy start to the summer, it thrived. As a matter of fact, it was so happy planted in the ground that Gail and I had to ask Fred and Dan – two very strong men – to dig it up in October and pot it into the most enormous container they could find. By the looks of the before and after, it must have nearly doubled in size.

Red peacock kale (Brassica) This about as ornamental as a vegetable can get, I think. It stood a good 2′ tall and was covered in blue and purple rosette frills by the end of the season (I wish I had pictures of the whole plant but as you see, the “flowers” were what captivated me.) It was tasty too! And by some miracle, the aphids and cabbage moths didn’t love it as much as I did. Close second in the ornamental veg category was Deadon Hybrid cabbage which would have been even more beautiful if the bunnies, slugs and moths didn’t love it too. Sweet and delicious!

Coreopsis ‘Sienna Sunset’ has that perfect soft orange color that just gets me. And it bloomed from the day we planted it in June until sometime in September or October without ever crying out to be deadheaded as some coreopsis do. (Our volunteers cringe to recall the punishment of  ‘Moonbeam’.) Fingers crossed that it survives the winter…

Dahlia ‘Pale Tiger’ and ‘Teesbrooke Redeye’ Gail and I were both really impressed with the dahlias we bought as cuttings from Corralitos Gardens and if I had to choose favorites, these would be them. (Today anyway. Ask me again tomorrow. ‘Florinoor’ was gorgeous too…)

Echinacea ‘Green Envy’ What can I say? I know this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea but I love love love it!

Gladiolus There’s not much new about glads – they’re about as old-fashioned as you can get. But it’s been a long time since we last used them, and I just loved seeing something come up so fresh and new in the late July heat. Two of the varieties that we planted in the North Garden were ‘Green Jade’ and ‘The Blues’.

Gomphrena ‘Fireworks’ is a seed annual we purchased from Burpee because it was “NEW” and “Unlike any Globe Amaranth ever seen!” And it was, without a doubt, a winner. It grew to about 3 and a half feet, was really nicely branched and chockablock full of blooms all summer. The flowers were an indeterminate shade between pink and purple (difficult to photograph) and studded by yellow-orange tips – very cool.

Rhus typhina ‘Tigereye Bailtiger’ – Tiger eye sumac I’m not sure how I missed this plant when it lived in the nursery bed but it got my full attention this year. Fred and Dan planted it for us on the shady edge of the “kid’s bed” where the foliage stayed a lovely chartruese rather than shifting to the citronella-yellow it wants to be. And then the fall color knocked us over. It might run like sumacs do, but somehow I don’t think it will be hard to find homes for any babies.

Rubus odoratus – Flowering raspberry or eastern thimbleberry This is another plant that wasn’t on my radar at all until a visiting editor from Fine Gardening magazine asked me about it. To find out why I think it’s a great plant, check out the Plant Picks section of the latest issue!

Out with the old? Not always. In with the new? You bet. Happy New Year!!

I am always blown away by the extravagant abundance surrounding the holidays – even when my family makes the annual decision to “go easy this year”. But it occurs to me that I should really feel accustomed to bonanza. Whether we gardeners grow plants for their flowers, foliage or food, we  are daily blessed by an embarrassment of riches – one I am never the least bit discomfited by.

Like many of you, I am taking a little time at the turn of the year – and the decade – to organize pictures and take a reassessing look back at the whole season. In a series of New Year posts I’ll list a Top Nine plants for 2009. I might even do a Top Ten for the whole decade (with Gail’s help) in order to list a few plants that have really stood the test. And unless I get distracted by other shiny topics, I’ll take a good look at whatever didn’t work so well in the gardens too. In the meantime though, while I do some more sorting, here is a year in pictures of extravagant abundance from all over Blithewold (in order from January to December, 2009):

Gail and I want to thank everyone who helped make these gardens and grounds so richly abundant and beautiful this year. Some of you know who you are – Fred and Dan, Lilah and Cathy, Julie, everyone in the house, all of the volunteers. Blithewold members, supporters and visitors, we couldn’t do it without any of you either. (And what would be the point?) Thanks go also to Blithewold’s virtual visitors. – I couldn’t write this without you. (Fellow bloggers, I have recently updated my blogroll – if you’re not on it and would like to be, please let me know.)

Are you reveling in or reviewing a year’s worth of your garden’s abundance too? If you have posted pictures, please send along a link!

I have had a particularly hard time letting go of summer this year and submitting to the possibility of winter. Perhaps my difficulty is rooted in the fact that summer itself seems reluctant to put its hands all the way up in the air in that universal gesture of You’ve-Got-Me. There’s still a spark. Even though we’ve had snow (which we all know = winter), and the dark morning and bitter cold wind made it impossible to get a clear shot of this Astrantia major, the point is, fergoshsakes, the Astrantia is blooming! Come on. It’s most certainly not July anymore but the Kniphofia still refuse to keel over and yesterday Gail rescued a praying mantis, of all things, from the rock wall. It’s December.

(Gail debated about bringing the mantis in. Always looking on the bright side though, she figured that it would die either way, and this way she’d gain a specimen for her collection.)

I give up. I’m following the mantis indoors. The temperatures have taken a wicked nose-dive this morning and we have just about finished outside anyway – the leaves are shredded, the dahlias are out of the ground (and in storage) and the gardens are cut back. We only have to go back out to trim down the whips on the roses but since they’re still blooming, we’ll wait a little longer before doing that. In a way – in lots of ways – I’m glad to go in and stay in. The greenhouse beckons.

Is your garden still showing any signs of a stubborn summer?

It is generally acknowledged that the difference between being temporarily pretty and eternally beautiful has something to do with bone structure. Like our own skin, which may or may not be wrapped around a Katherine Hepburn-esque skeleton, our garden hangs on its bones too. But although no plastic surgeon is truly capable of changing those of us unlikely to age gracefully, I think it is possible for everyone to have a garden every bit as timelessly handsome as, say, Gregory Peck. All we need, aside from a plan, is … time. Plus patience. (Isn’t it interesting that, when it comes to standards of beauty in a garden, age is usually a benefit rather than a liability?)

It’s easy to recognize an eternally beautiful garden. During the height of a colorful summer, you might not even be aware of why it’s so beautiful. But over the winter it hits you that the garden is every bit as stunning, stark-raving naked. Some properties (like Blithewold) are sublimely situated and while, like the curl in one’s hair, that’s definitely part of beauty, it’s not the be-all and end-all. What the garden really needs is structure within its perimeter and view to keep it from being as boneless and boring as our cutting bed in winter. It needs permanent elements – trees with muscles, rocks maybe, buildings (most of us have a house in the middle of our garden if not a garage and sheds too), and some might say to include a water feature – anything worth looking at even after the summer’s skin is shed. And those features should fit the scale of the garden’s face like expressive eyebrows and chiseled cheeks.

The last leaves haven’t even fallen yet but I’m already jazzed to think about Gregory Peck – I mean the gardens’ bone structure. The Display Garden still has a ways to go before it’s truly handsome in its own right but now it’s much easier to see what it needs. — My own garden at home cries out for eternal beauty too and there is where my patience will be truly tested: Good bones take such a long time to build.

Does your garden have good bone structure? Do you have plan(t)s to improve it?