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| Quince flowers herald spring |
The five stages of spring gardening have stayed remarkably static for me, whether I was living in B.C., Oregon, or here in Hertfordshire. This account being chiefly about spring, it omits the hopeful months of late fall and winter, when you stand in the garden with your beloved discussing how next year will be different, and envisaging all the wonderful things you can/should/will do in the off-season and planning wonderful new heights for the garden. It goes something like this:
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| Aren't the bluebells lovely? |
1. Joy. Sometime between January and March, you see the snowdrops and crocuses rise defiantly up through the snow or the grass, depending on the year, and you can't help it: your heart fills with joy. As the weeks pass, more and more of the garden comes to life, and you thrill as the garden fills with flowers from bulbs: daffodils, tulips, bluebells, lily of the valley. Fruit trees bud out then blossom in riotous pinks and whites. Giddy with spring fever, you get out the garden table and chairs, prudently leaving on the rain covers. Maybe you even make a hopeful trip to the garden centre.
2. Concern. As the sun comes out, and showers start, you wonder when the explosion happened. All the old stalks you left for the over-wintering critters now stand dead and ugly amongst the greenery. The trees you didn't get around to pruning early enough go from bare branches to a breathtaking array of green within hours. The lawn is looking shaggy and suddenly one day appears to be more dandelions than grass.
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| Forsythia in Bloom |
3. Panic. You have been glancing with growing alarm at the garden as you dash from the car to the house in the pouring rain carrying sixteen grocery bags.The grass that was dormant now stands three feet tall and surely harbours everything from giant rats to tigers. The vines have overtaken all the trees. Weeds have choked out nearly all the flowers in the beds.Now, after several consecutive weeks of rain, panic sets in. At the first sign that the downpour is letting up, you dash outside and fire up the mower, which groans in dismay as you wade into the lawn, and dies.
4. Despair. As the weeks pass, you manically hack and cut and pull at every opportunity. It never seems to make any difference. One day you realize that the horrible brown-specked scraggly plants you have just industriously cleaned out of the beds were your gladiolas. Your shoulders slump and you drag yourself inside, dolefully clutching the few small stalks of rhubarb you have managed to salvage.
5. Apathy. As the weeks of summer wear on, your sense of community pride shrivels. You mow the lawn every 3 to 4 weeks.With what you won't admit to yourself is a sense of relief, you finally don the mantle of utter failure. You invite people over for garden parties or BBQs and just before they arrive you halfheartedly run the mower over the grass where you'll be sitting. After a few Pimm's or margaritas, no-one notices anyway, right?
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| Wisteria temporarily under control |
I am hoping to cling to my hapless urge to garden for another few weeks, maybe hang on until the Queen's Diamond Jubilee in June, in case anyone comes over or they have a street party in my neighbourhood. Then all bets are off. I even have a vacation abroad planned this summer; any residual guilt feelings that I harbour can be shrugged off with "What can I do? I was away." So if you're planning to visit us this summer, do it now before it's too late and you have to hack your way through the holly to get in the front gate, and get tangled in the wisteria before you get to the door.
2. Concern. As the sun comes out, and showers start, you wonder when the explosion happened. All the old stalks you left for the over-wintering critters now stand dead and ugly amongst the greenery. The trees you didn't get around to pruning early enough go from bare branches to a breathtaking array of green within hours. The lawn is looking shaggy and suddenly one day appears to be more dandelions than grass.
