Plant Talk

Plotting the Resurrection

 
If it wasn't for the great satisfaction of tucking narcissus and allium bulbs into the soil, I'd probably turn my back on the dying garden and head indoors for the winter. But brown paper sacks filled with lumps of potential are lined up on my garage shelves, so there's nothing for it but to cut back the dahlia foliage and dying hosta leaves to find enough bare earth to plant springtime.  

Every year at this time I read E.B. White's introduction to his wife's book "Onward and Upward in the Garden", which contains one of the most poignant scenes in garden literature. White evokes all the absurd optimism inherent in planting bulbs as he describes his wife out in the garden as always, planting flowers she'll never see....

"As years went by and age overtook her, there was something comical yet touching in her bedraggled appearance on this awesome occasion - the small, hunched-over figure, her studied absorption in the implausible notion that there would be yet another spring, oblivious to the ending of her own days, which she knew perfectly well was near at hand, sitting there with her detailed chart under those dark skies in the dying October, calmly plotting the resurrection."

Coming Back to the Garden

There are  drawbacks to living elsewhere than in your own garden half the time. I commute between Seattle and my Langley garden, and many days I so want to duck outdoors and pick a bouquet, check on what's budding, or pull a few weeds.

Arriving in Langley on a sunny Wednesday afternoon made up for many moments of garden deprivation.  When your garden is right outside your windows every day, it's easy for your senses to dull a bit...to lose track of spring's slow unfolding. But when you're away for more than a week, springtime hits you over the head with its magic.

When I last left Langley, it was like winter - cold and wet, the garden bleak and nearly dormant. What a difference a few warm days in April makes...it was a great joy to find drifts of bright daffodils, 'Princess Irene' tulips opening to the sun, and ruffled Crown Imperial fritillaria finally bursting into bloom when I arrived back in Langley this afternoon. The peas are growing, the lettuces plumping up nicely. Well, see for yourself - the daffodils are mostly the orange-cupped Narcissus 'Serola'; the tulips 'Princess Irene' surrounding a little trellis of 'Sugar Snap' peas in the feed trough. The bottom photo is of the peacock-like Crown Imperial frittilaria just opening its orange bells.

Frost Date Addendum, Daffodils

University of Washington meteorologist Cliff Mass weighed in on yesterday's post where I suggested that we were coming up on the last hard frost date for the Puget Sound area. 

 "Be careful about saying April 1 is the last day of frost," wrote Cliff, "For many localities around here it is much later.  That is probably the average freeze data away from the water...half of the time it is later..This is another very cold spring...." 

We've noticed. But does he see any sun and warmth coming our way soon? 

His answer?....... "You don't want to know".

Here's one silver lining - if you love daffodils as I do, they'll bloom for many long weeks in this chilly weather....

Narcissus 'February Gold' (left) and 'Jack Snipe' courtesy of Great Plant Picks