Can't Wait Until Spring? Take the Edge off with Frilly Tulips and the Sweet Scent of Hyacinths

T.S. Eliot memorably claimed April as the cruelest month, but March can be a despair-inducing tease too. A whiff of spring is quickly drowned out by rain, wind, cold and more wind....I'm headed to the desert. It's past time for a dose of sun and warmth -

In the meantime, a small bunch of fragrant hyacinth, and two bunches of yellow and orange parrot tulips in a butter yellow vase turned my day around. Maybe my week. Tulips can look unfortunately stiff just plunked into a vase. The sweet furriness of pussywillows and a haze of twiggy little euonymus branches  add framework and line while softening the stand-offish tulips, melding them into a bouquet.

And nothing is stiffer and more unfortunately soldier-like than hyacinths in the garden (if you have any tips for integrating hyacinths into the border, please share them). But their sweet fragrance fills the room - cut, they're heaven, especially in this ethereal shade of palest yellow. Here they share table space with a bouquet cut from the garden of so-purple-they're-almost-black hellebores, variegated Daphne odora (not quite in bloom, but almost) and a few little narcissus.

And back to the more elegant, but unfortunately scent-less tulips, mixed with pussywillows and the bare branches of burning bush (Euonymus alata), studded with just-emerging leaf buds.