It's Almost  Spring!

What‘s with human nature? Last beautiful and sunny Sunday, when the temperature was above 40 degrees and culverts were filled with water from the melting snow, I began thinking about gardening and lawn care. I know it’s too early for those thoughts, but I couldn’t help myself.

I decided just where I’m transplanting my rhubarb. It’s currently planted too close to the house and the stalks have always been puny for lack of water. It needs to be divided and moved to an area near the boundary with my neighbor. It’s a wet spot so there will be plenty of moisture for the rhubarb stalks to grow to huge sizes.
On Sunday, to take a break from preparing my taxes, I walked around the house on the sodden and grey grass. The bergenias are still brown and leathery but some green shows near the stalks. Nowhere could I find a green nub from a tulip, daffodil, crocus, or hyacinth. They all know that this winter is not like previous winters and there’s more snow and cold to come.

Like my green beauties just under the soil, I ache for the drying spring winds and warm sun. We’ve all been in hibernation. The flowers want to spring forth in all their colorful glory and I want to be in the yard puttering about with rays of sun warming my back.

For now, however, all I can do is peruse the seed and plant catalogs and flip through the library’s gardening books. A new book I particularly like is “The Homeowner’s Complete Tree and Shrub Handbook” by Penelope O’Sullivan. The colored pictures of each tree and shrub, along with the description that includes the height and width of a mature plant, makes this book particularly useful.

Favorite gardening books of mine include “Gardening with Perennials” from the editors of Horticulture Magazine which has beautiful colored pictures of individual plans as well as great landscape examples. “Flower Gardening 1-2-3” is a gorgeous Home Depot book that illustrated just about every motion and every tool and piece of equipment required to make your garden dream come true. All of the Ortho Guide books are filled with photographs and descriptions for the gardener. Ortho’s “Successful Flower Gardening” is one of several that should be studied. Eric Sawford’s “Hardy Perennials, a Beginner’s Guide” is also a favorite for browsing.

Last summer, I saw my first hummingbird in the garden. He was there for just an afternoon. I’ve already checked out the Ortho book, “How to Attract Hummingbirds and Butterflies” and have learned about other plants to grow in order to bring those tiny and colorful birds back this summer to dart from flower to flower.

If you like to garden, whether it be for flowers or vegetables, now is the time to begin planning for the coming summer. Forget about the snow and the cold. Leaf through each seed catalog that arrives in the mail and make frequent visits to the Library to check out more books on the subject. Before you know it, the crocus will be in blossom, soon to be followed by the daffodils, tulips and hyacinths.