Spring Snow

I awoke to a light spring snow. Throughout March and now April the trees have almost daily swayed heavily to the will of the wind.  Spring has never failed to arrive, but it feels like this winter will last forever. Most plants and flowers have remained asleep under the slowly warming ground. Some have fretfully emerged, surrounded by frozen flakes.

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The Hickory trees still greedily hold onto their now almost translucent crinkled ivory colored leaves.

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The daffodils are bent over in frozen submission.

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A few days ago KBJ and I worked in the gardens, and I wore shorts. The house got warm enough that we turned on the A/C. The next day it barely rose above freezing.

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The buds of many trees and shrubs are still hiding, seemingly without the strength and necessary warmth for their leaves to unfold.

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Last week I sat on one of these rockers, my face to the sun, whispering, ahhh, spring is finally here to stay. What was I thinking? Last year at this time I had a driveway full of plants and flowers to place in the already warm earth of our gardens. Oh nature, quit toying with my spirit. Oh nature, you are more fickle than a woman.

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Gardening is about hope, but for the first time, it feels dreadful to think about it. Last year,and the year before, and the year before that, despite the loss of huge trees, shrubs and perennials, and the extreme weather, the gardens managed to look lovely. But it took a tremendous amount of work, work that usually made me feel good at the end of the day. This year, everything looks to be forever coated in layers of brown with a humongous forest of Bonsai oak seedlings standing like toothpick soldiers across our acres of gardens.

“Everything that slows us down and forces patience, everything that sets us back into the slow circles of nature, is a help. Gardening is an instrument of grace.”  May Sarton, American poet (1912 –1995)

 

laters, charisse

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