Spring Forward

Mother Nature is not an instant gratification kind of gal.  I am pretty sure she enjoys doing jigsaw puzzles.  She is content to find an edge and slowly, slowly work inward to gradually reveal a small section of a tile roof on a house that she’ll eventually discover sits on a hillside, above a seascape.  My shoulders tense up just thinking about the slow torture of doing a jigsaw puzzle.  Mother Nature has patience.  I do not.  This is just one reason I am not cut out to be a gardener.

But something happens to me when we “spring forward”.  Resetting the clocks also restarts my engine, even if it does sputter for a day or two as I adjust to that lost hour of sleep.  Extra daylight, warmer weather and the chirpy sound of spring peepers shake me out of my winter funk and lure me outside to see if anything survived the harsh winter.

I start with what I have discovered is a very effective gardening technique:  removing the dead leaves from my garden bed.  I do not enjoy this task, but it is the only thing I know how to do and it delivers the instant results I crave.

If I’m not too late in the season, I can push back the brown crust to reveal intense blue blooms of dwarf iris.  I found them just in time this year.  They don’t last long, maybe a week.  But they send me a signal that I need to get to work.   With my help, tulip bulbs that have been struggling to break through the weight of damp moldy leaves can be set free to grow and bloom.  It is amazing how fast they grow once those leaves are gone!

The shoots of green spur my curiosity and my desire to do more, so I start to prune back the dead perennials that should have been cut or tied back and braided and composted the prior fall.  My neglect is evident.  Still, the slightest effort is rewarded when removing a dead layer reveals new growth.

Underneath the tangled brown stalks, I find little purple cabbage leaves that are actually the start of bluebells I know will blanket this space in April.   Newly exposed pinkish roots hint that come May, I’ll have big fat, fluffy peonies brightening my days and filling my patio with their sweet smell.  Hairy greenish clumps hidden under brittle leaves are actually the start of phlox that will grow to be two feet tall when its dark green leaves burst into purple blossoms in late June.

Before I know it, I am knee deep in Mother Nature’s jigsaw puzzle.  My shoulders are tense from scurrying to find the pieces she scattered all around, but I know will she reward what little patience I have.