I Don't Believe in Spring
It's that time again. People keep reporting that they are seeing the nubs of daffodils, or that their crocuses are in bloom.
Meanwhile, here in Chinchilla, PA, I spend a lot of time with my nose pressed against the sunroom window, straining my eyes in vain for even a tiny sign of emerging snowdrops.
We go through a lot of window cleaner in February and March.
Sometimes the days are mild and the sky is blue and I am almost certain that if winter isn't disguising itself in a particularly fiendish way, then spring is actually here.
But this year I see no sun, no blue skies. In fact, if I hadn't insisted on peach colored trim for our gray barn I might come to believe that I am looking not at the yard but at a giant black and white projection of the yard devoid of hope. I had to replace the car that immolated itself in protest at being forced to work well into old age with a newer one. It is black and white. The sky is gray and white, and the limbs of the old sycamore silhouetted against the sky are done in tones of charcoal. Even the hens patrolling the side yard are in black. And like a cruel joke the only plant life I can see poking out through the snow is Ophiopogon nigrescens - black mondo grass.
Are you sensing a theme here?
It's a good think that I can look back on my four or more years of weekly articles. Reading through them I see that every year at this time I begin to doubt that there will be a spring. And yet - so far - every year I have been wrong. There are times when I don't mind being in error - even publicly.
I think at this time of year, gardeners are like kids when Christmas is coming. The anticipation of our season seems to make time slow to a crawl. At my age I suppose I should be grateful. Instead I cast wildly about for an activity - anything - that will let me pretend that spring is almost upon us.
The first thing I find is a big stack of catalogs that have been accumulating over the past several weeks. I flipped through them as they came, but wanted almost everything. So I saved them for a time when I felt a bit wiser and more selective. As a side note - this never actually happens. I will thumb through most of these catalogs again - maybe a few more times, but my wish list is always so much longer than my finances that I usually end up ordering nothing at all. However, I can kill several evenings in the pleasant delusion that I am busily planning this year's garden.
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