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 hate to miss anything. Especially spring. And some years it feels like it just flies by before I can catch it. I think that’s why I almost prefer early spring to any other season of the year. It’s all about potential. There’s still a chance I’ll catch the season as it comes and enjoy it to its very fullest.

Everyone keeps asking, “When are the daffodils going to bloom?” Soon enough is what I want to say (their swan necks are bent into position). But isn’t it lovely that they’re taking their time? (I think their actually on time!) I find it much easier to appreciate (and find) the tiniest and prettiest now than when the whole trumpet section starts blaring (not that I’m not blown away by that). And it’s easier to notice the other beauties like the multicolored foliage emerging on the false spiraea (Sorbaria sorbifolia ‘Sem’), butterbur (Petasites japonicus) in full bloom, buds swelling on the Cornelian cherry (Cornus mas), the burgundy leaves spiking native honeysuckle vines, and dawn viburnum (Viburnum x bodnantense ‘Dawn’) still blooming away.

One of our volunteers this morning also pointed out the stark beauty of our gardens, freshly tidied, almost empty looking but chock full of potential. She’s totally right – they’re gorgeous, though it’s harder to tell from a photo. If you can squint though you can almost see a long glorious and colorful season ahead…

Chilly weather this week should help to hold this thought. But as soon as we get another warm run of days like we had last weekend everything will begin to rush madly further into spring. If you’re trying to plan a trip around the daffodils’ peak, I would say come sometime around mid-April. But if you’re like me and hate to miss anything, including the gorgeousness of not-quite-there-yet, come now. And then come often.

Cupid’s dart hit a bull’s-eye this morning. Another snowfall – a sugar dusting this time – helped me realize something that I’ve known all along without knowing it. I am capable of becoming every bit as attached to places as I am to people. It’s so obvious: I am in love. Blithewold, will you be my Valentine?

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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?

It seems impossible to speak or think about anything else right now. The news is too full of horrific loss and our hearts are too broken. I won’t claim to have a clue about how to fix anything – as if there is a fix – but I know I’m not alone in believing in the healing power of nature. In cathartic walks in the rain. In the deep inhale of a favorite fragrance. In a handful of potting soil. In the obvious preciousness of all life.

Are you finding solace? Where?