I really don’t know what to make of this season. The last few days have been in the bird-song-balmy 50′s but we woke this morning to fat flakes. They have already turned to freezing rain and I would say we have finally turned the corner from a spring-like winter to a winter-like spring. It’s been really tempting to jump the gun on spring – Gail and I haven’t been able to stay out of the garden tidying up. And we’re not the only ones: the autumn blooming cherry (Prunus subhirtella ‘Autumnalis’) has a hair-trigger for spring too. Poor thing is blooming away, again, in the snow. Might not look like much in actual spring this year and it will be interesting to see if any tiny cherries develop. (The bees might have been on it in the last few days anyway.)

I know it’s springter and the official start of the garden-calendar year because we sowed the sweet peas this week, right on a President’s day schedule. (Washington’s birthday to be exact.) We haven’t gotten all of our seeds in yet so we started the ones I ordered from Unwins and a few I was offered for free from Renee’s Garden (I’m on a free-trial list through my Garden Writers Assoc. membership.) Even if we had purchased them, which we have in the past, I would have to say that Renee has some of my favorite varieties (Blue Celeste, Watermelon, Cupani’s Original) and is very generous with her seeds. I like that. The more sweet peas the better especially since they seem to be tempting to our newest greenhouse tenant. It’s been a while since we’ve had mice and I’m not sure what I’ll do if they work their way through a top and bottom barrier of appropriated row-cover cloth.

We started the sweet peas in cowpots, and rather than nick or soak the seeds (I inevitably ruin seeds and destroy my fingers by trying to snip or file the seedcoat off) we simply sow them about a 1/4″ down, put them in our coolest greenhouse, and wait. Our mouse unearthed evidence that they are already beginning to swell out of their coat. In another week or two, any that remain uneaten should begin to emerge.

Are you sowing sweet peas this year? What marks the start of your garden-calendar year?

It’s almost 70 degrees outside, the air is feather-soft, the sky is blue-blue and the sun has that golden, get-under-your-eyelids slant. It’s the kind of day that absolutely insists that we get outside. We should be looking for fall color and reindeer moss, or sitting back against a warm wall with our eyes closed, or propping up fallen seedheads…

I had to look up Indian summer to see if this would officially qualify and it must. The definitions say that it’s that spell of warm weather after frost and right before the ground freezes solid and snow covers everything. It’s also the thaw that comes later in the winter – January or February – that feels so much like spring. Perfect time for an Indian raid evidently, which explains the name. According to Wikipedia, other countries call it things like “Old Ladies’ Summer”, “Little summer of the quince”, “Golden October”; and “a tiger in autumn”. (I have to say, I like those names better.)

We’ve had frost – we even had a dusting of snow – but it hasn’t been cold enough to do absolutely everything in (maybe because of this Old Ladies’ summer we’re having.) It’s been interesting to note the survivors particularly among the annuals. The lettuce in the raised bed is perky as ever; borage is fine and so is most of the nicotiana, agastache, and the salvias. What Dahlias were left in the ground went not in the snow surprisingly, but over a cold night a couple of days after that. Unfortunately we had to take most of the other annuals out – particularly in the cutting garden and North Garden – and I would have liked to see which were the ones made of tougher stuff. Some of my neighbors still have zinnias blooming… What annuals survive the first frosts in your garden?

I hope you’re outside right now (if you’re having this perfectly lovely Indian summer too) taking the opportunity to futz in the garden, lie back in the chaise, or collect bouquets of leaves. Come to think of it, what the heck am I doing still sitting in front of this comput—

All in all, we were very lucky here. A few trees came down, a bunch of big limbs, and a million-gazillion twigs but nothing extra-precious was lost. There was no damage to any building or structure and even the gardens came through just fine. Plants were a little tumbled but totally OK. As a matter of fact, the Rock Garden, which we were so worried about, looks untouched. It was never under water and must have been protected from the wind too. And the vegetable garden was still in such good shape, aside from a few toppled tomatoes, that thanks to the Tuesday volunteers, we donated 135 lbs. of produce to the East Bay Food Pantry yesterday! (The tomatoes that Gail, Dick and Tree picked before the storm also made up a good chunk of that total.) We did lose power but only for a couple of days and the greenhouse generator hummed right through. We were very lucky.

Mid-day Wednesday and the chipper is finally quiet. First thing Monday morning a pair of extra-strong junior super heroes named Luke and Adam, their parents (one of whom is Blithewold’s executive director), our closest neighbors from the north cottage, and Gail and I started piling downed branches and twigs; and Fred and Dan have worked all along, well into the evenings chipping those branches, felling dangerous hangers, sawing up logs, blowing leaves, mowing, and making sure the property is safe and tidy again for visitors. We’re finally open again today. We are so lucky. I hope you are too.

(Click on pictures for a better view.)

Yesterday a visiting friend and fellow blogger asked me, “What’s your favorite thing blooming right now?” and with very little hesitation (it’s best to answer that sort of question as quickly as possible) I answered, “Crabapples.” Despite having an easy dozen other answers to that question on any given day, crabapples are on the front of my mind right now for a couple of reasons.

One is, I’ve been wanting to buy one for my own garden ever since I started paying a mortgage and am still trying to make up my mind about which one to get. At Blithewold we have a grove of three gorgeous Malus floribunda that are almost wider than they are tall and very dense. We also have a fairly recently planted orchard of Malus ‘Dolgo’. According to Dirr, these will be biggies (30-40′) with a more open branching structure. Our ‘Prairifire’ is still young (destined to be 15-20′ tall and wide) and has gorgeous deep raspberry buds and blooms. (Love that one…) But probably our most beautiful crabapple of all is the ancestral tree at the water’s edge. Nothing is more photogenic than that tree in full bloom.

Do you have a favorite crabapple?

The other reason crabapples are on my mind is because when they bloom is also when the Baltimore orioles come back (-the birds, that is. The baseball team won’t be at Fenway again until next week.) I love hearing their call – louder than the spring chorus of lawnmowers – and seeing their bright orange breasts flashing and clashing against all that pink. I’m not sure what they work on in the crabapples – they are nectar sippers – but they also eat insects. As a matter of fact, they are one of the best consumers around of our most destructive insects and caterpillars. Don’t bother spray because the orioles will be happy to eat all sorts of things like fall webworm, gypsy moth larvae, tent caterpillars, potato beetles, scale, and the sawfly larvae that make lace out of rose bushes.

Male orioles make the trip up from Central America, Mexico, etc a few days before the females in order to stake out their territory and they often come back to the same place every year. And the females construct the nest, which is a perfect illustration for the nightmarish lullaby we all grew up with. (Remember, “Rock-a-bye baby, in the tree top. When the wind blows, the cradle will rock…”?) They suspend a woven pocket-like bassinet miles off the ground at the ends of branches. Gail spotted an old one blowing around high up in a Norway maple this winter – much too high up for a picture, alas. The birds go quiet after mating but keep your eyes peeled – they’ll be eating serviceberry and cherries as well as caterpillars. And keep your ears tuned: sometime in August up until they leave in September, the males sing again.

Did you happen to notice when the orioles came back too? (Here it was Friday the 6th. Click on the photo for a closer look.)

Besides the visible beauties in bloom like the daffodils (about halfway towards peak!), forsythia, Cornelian cherry, maples and spicebush, my nose knows there are other less visible blooms too. Evergreens like Hinoki cypress (Chamaecyparis obtusa), Sawara cypress (C. pisifera), and Japanese cedar (Cryptomeria japonica) are absolutely loaded with flowers and great foggy puffs of pollen – more than Gail and I have ever noticed before. (Click to enlarge pictures below – the top one shows a pollen cloud.) My theory is the trees were stressed by the last summer’s drought and are endeavoring to ensure the survival of the species by flowering madly – the same way African violets bloom gangbusters when we forget to water them for a while – in hopes that the next generation will carry on if they can’t. Or they’re simply going through a normal cycle of heavy and light bloom years.

The Katsura (the male flowers of the weeping form – Cercidiphyllum japonicum ‘Pendulum’ shown below) and maples are showy enough for me to call gorgeous but they’re also wind-pollinated – probably smart to not take their chances on insects when April weather can be so iffy.

I am really looking forward to breathing again and seeing the bees working on cherries, crabapples and serviceberry (Amelanchier spp.). Unfortunately serviceberry and crabapples are susceptible to a disfiguring – but rarely life threatening – thing that’s also blooming right now: cedar-apple rust. Check your Eastern red cedars (Juniperus spp.) for bright-orange gelatinous alien-looking galls – they usually bloom on a sunny day right after a rainstorm. Cut them off and throw them away – not in the compost.

What have you noticed blooming?

To see more – and probably showier – flowers blooming around the country and world today, visit Garden Bloggers Bloom Day over at May Dreams Gardens.