Is it Spring Yet???

“You can’t see Canada across lake Erie, but you know it’s there.  It’s the same with spring.  You have to have faith, especially in Cleveland.”  ~Paul Fleischman

March madness is in full swing, and that includes not just the ACC basketball tournament, but the weather. High winds and 30 degree temperatures (more than 25 degrees below normal), it is a crazy ride to the change of seasons! Hopefully the winds will push a reluctant spring season into Virginia, and Syracuse (my alma mater) will win the ACC tournament! That would shake things up a bit down here since this is their first year in the ACC.

My preferred way to greet spring is always in my gardens……

Garden chores await. I live in woodland dominated by oaks and hickory trees. Therefore leaves come down all winter long with the oaks, and all at once for the hickory trees, thus raking, a lot of raking, is necessary in the spring. Trailer loads of mulch will need spreading, and pruning continues as I survey the damage from this record breaking winter. No rest for the weary, and although I relish being able to soon be outside before the heat of summer arrives, today is not the day, with risk of more falling limbs. Tulips, iris and daffodils are pushing through the ground and the voles are having a field day creating row after row of tunnels in the driveway and along the garden borders. There is lots for them to eat in the woodland so I wish they would spend more time there, but on the whole, they eat grubs and insects and that is a good thing as I do not use chemicals. They are kind of cute anyway…live and let live is my motto, although at the moment they are really going to town.

I like spring as it lurches forward in its effort to defeat winter ……….

Pruning last year’s winter wind dried flowers will multiply the life  potential that will bursts from  new buds………

Oak leaf hydrangeas.

It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.  ~Charles Dickens,Great Expectations

The light is changing, and one of the first indications of this is right outside my front door, where after a winter where the sun never shines on the front entry, it is now beginning to greet me. This is one of my very favorite garden decor items, hanging just to the right of my front entrance door.

Spring is sooner recognized by plants than by men.  ~Chinese Proverb

 You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming.  ~Pablo Neruda

And Spring arose on the garden fair,
Like the Spirit of Love felt everywhere;
And each flower and herb on Earth’s dark breast
rose from the dreams of its wintry rest.
~Percy Bysshe Shelley, “The Sensitive Plant” 

First a howling blizzard woke us,
Then the rain came down to soak us,
And now before the eye can focus —
Crocus.  ~Lilja Rogers 

Here hyacinths of heavenly blue
Shook their rich tresses to the morn.
        Montgomery—The Adventure of a Star.

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 I think that no matter how old or infirm I may become, I will always plant a large garden in the spring.  Who can resist the feelings of hope and joy that one gets from participating in nature’s rebirth?  ~Edward Giobbi

Thanks for stopping by. Laters, charisse