Winter's bones, garden scars

HALLIE EPHRON: It's still a bit chilly here in New England but spring has definitely sprung. The weeping willows have already passed from their beautiful opening number (yellow/lime green buds) to green. Cherries, dogwoods, forsythia, all are blooming like crazy, and cool temps are keep the blossoms on the magnolias. 

But everywhere the remnants of a brutal, late winter blizzard that left my yard buried for weeks in 3 feet of snow, are still in evidence.

Most of the bushes and trees have survived intact and are blooming ferociously.

And my early spring carpet of blue scilla has burst from the ground and is putting on a show.

And then there's this...

This Japanese quince bush should be in full, hot pink bloom. Instead, it's barren. And the bark has been stripped from its branches, starting at about a foot off the ground.

Time will tell whether it will "spring" back next year but I'm not optimistic.

Here's another Japanese quince which only seems to be half dead. 

Consensus here is that the culprits are rabbits. The bane of my garden.

For weeks after that formidable blizzard, a thick blanket of covered the grass and weeds that sustain the rabbits through winter. The snow weighed down the branches and the rabbits climbed aboard, helping themselves to the bark and stripping the branches clean.

And so no flowers formed. No leaves are budding. I'm not optimistic that the bushes will come back. Time will tell.

What do you think? Is there any hope that my Japanese quinces will come back?

Are you having a gorgeous spring, and does your neighborhood bear winter's scars?

April Surprises!

Jenn McKinlay: April is always a big month for me for two very good reasons. First, it is my wedding anniversary (27 years this year) and second, spring has finally taken root. Ha! See what I did there? Spring? Root? Very punny, I know. Julia covered the melancholy that comes with the arrival of April, and I do get it, but I tend to see it as more of a month of surprises.

The wedding anniversary is a big deal because quite honestly, I spent most of my life not planning to marry. Not that I have anything against marriage. It just wasn't part of my agenda. I blame my brother. We're Irish twins and since he was only 11 months older than me, I just did whatever he did. I mean, really, why play house when you can play pirates?

This attitude pretty much shaped my formative years. My poor mother used to put me in a dress every day and then as soon as her car pulled out of the driveway, she was a high school librarian, I ran back upstairs and changed into my play clothes (jeans and T-shirt) and then went to school. This went on until my second grade teacher sent home a note ratting me out because she was concerned that I was wearing the same clothes to school every day and, yeah, I kind of smelled.

Suffice to say, my mother got shorted on the daughter front. She did not get a mani-pedi buddy in her little girl, no instead she got a pre-adolescent who announced that she was going to travel the world and have four children but never marry. Yes, I did! I think it is a testament to her Connecticut Yankee constitution that she didn't stroke out but just smiled and nodded and said, "We'll see."

Fast forward a few years and a few boyfriends later and there I was married to the other half of our whole. Mom was quite relieved. So April is always a favorite month for me because it really does make me believe in the unexpected. Sort of like gardening in central Arizona, I am always delighted when my peach and pomegranate trees bloom and later fruit. Spring always amazes! As does life!

So, Reds and Readers, what is your favorite thing about spring?

Swift Six for Saturday

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Since this week has been (mostly) about spring, let's do a swift six (because that alliterates with Saturday, of course) on April!

 

 

1. Hyacinths, tulips, or daffodils? Hyacinths. There's something about those little pastel florets I can't resist. I always have a pot indoors this time of year. 

2. Asparagus or spring peas? Asparagus - but it has to be steamed until it's perfectly crisp.

 

3. The Masters Tournament, the Boston Marathon, or Major League Opening Day?  Opening Day, of course. Every April, Ross would say, "I think this could could be the Red Sox's year." (spoiler: it usually wasn't.)

 

4. DIY taxes, TurboTax, or CPA? CPA, ever since I bungled DIY taxes so badly we had to get lawyers involved...

 

5. Raincoat or umbrella? My friend Roxanne gave me a perfect LL Bean classic raincoat, so I'm all about the yellow slicker now.

 

6. Your pilgrimage is to: cherry blossoms, Nordstrom's end of season sale, garden centers?  Cherry blossoms. I'm going to visit my sister in DC next week, and I'm hoping some will still be hanging on!

 

 DEBORAH CROMBIE:

1. Hyacinths, tulips, or daffodils?

I'm with you on the hyacinths, Julia. That scent is divine. For when they're not in season, my farmers market friend makes hyacinth candles which are not a bad substitute.

 

2. Asparagus or spring peas?

Asparagus, but must not be over-cooked. Although I do also love spring peas.

 

3. The Masters Tournament, the Boston Marathon, or Major League Opening Day? 

Major League Opening Day!!

 

4. DIY taxes, TurboTax, or CPA?

CPA absolutely!

 

5. Raincoat or umbrella? 

Love my Eddie Bauer rain jacket, but will add an umbrella in a real downpour.

 

6. Your pilgrimage is to: cherry blossoms, Nordstrom's end of season sale, garden centers?

Garden centers. Too many to count already this spring. It's an addiction.

  

 HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN:

1. Hyacinths, tulips, or daffodils? 

Tulips! My very favorite. Although I love the fragrance of hyacinths.

 

2. Asparagus or spring peas?

 Difficult! I adore grilled asparagus, though, if it's just right. And it wins for weirdest way of growing.

 

3. The Masters Tournament, the Boston Marathon, or Major League Opening Day?  

 Oh, opening day, that's so irresistible. But I have covered the Marathon for years, and its so strange not to be there now that I am not on the beat.

 

4. DIY taxes, TurboTax, or CPA? 

CPA, yikes. Definitely.

 

5. Raincoat or umbrella?  

That's so funny. Umbrellas work, but they are SO awkward. Your umbrella gets soaked as you use it to get to the car. You get into the car, and then what? Ahh.

 

6. Your pilgrimage is to: cherry blossoms, Nordstrom's end of season sale, garden centers? 

Garden centers, most definitely. I love the fragrance, and anything seems possible. (And I truly did not realize why they were called nurseries until like, yesterday. I gasped.)

 

RHYS BOWEN:

Bear in mind that I am in Arizona. Spring is long gone. Temps are over 90. Any spring flower that thought of growing has been long fried and died.  But I do go back to CA in a week's time and it should be spring there with poppies, lupins etc.

 

 1. Hyacinths, tulips, or daffodils?

I love tulips in theory but they never last long enough in the house. Daffodils are usually the first to be found in Trader Joes and come home with me to cheer up dark days.

 

2. Asparagus or spring peas?

We seem to live on asparagus. Having lived in Germany and Austria where there is an aparagus season of about 6 weeks, and white asparagus too, I think I'd really prefer that. The restaurants cook everything asparagus and then it goes.

 

3. The Masters Tournament, the Boston Marathon, or Major League Opening Day? 

I'll watch the Masters as my family are golf fanatics, but I'm a tennis fan and am watching Monte Carlo this week.

 

4. DIY taxes, TurboTax, or CPA?

I have used HR Block's program for several years, after consulting both CPAs and Tax attorneys. Since the major work is assembling all the items not entering them it seems to work well for me. (and I got a refund for the first time in ages)

 

5. Raincoat or umbrella? 

Usually raincoat. Who has an extra hand for an umbrella and it's impossible to navigate crowds.

 

6. Your pilgrimage is to: cherry blossoms, Nordstrom's end of season sale, garden centers?

None of the above this year, although I may try to get out to the Marin Headlands to the wildflowers when we return to CA.

  

 JENN McKINLAY: 

1. Hyacinths, tulips, or daffodils?

 Daffodils are spring to me, but I love hyacinths and tulips, too.

2. Asparagus or spring peas?

 Asparagus. My parents used to grow it in our garden, so also a core memory.

3. The Masters Tournament, the Boston Marathon, or Major League Opening Day? 

 Major League Opening Day!!! Go D-Backs!

4. DIY taxes, TurboTax, or CPA?

 I have a CPA but I'm so late this year I think it's going to be DIY - please, save me.

5. Raincoat or umbrella? 

 A brolly, always! It doubles as a weapon if needed :)

6. Your pilgrimage is to: cherry blossoms, Nordstrom's end of season sale, garden centers?

 Cherry blossoms!!!

 

 HALLIE EPHRON:

 1. Hyacinths, tulips, or daffodils?

Definitely tulips. I love the way they go every which way and then toss their petals at the end.

2. Asparagus or spring peas?

Spring peas. If I can find them. So special.

3. The Masters Tournament, the Boston Marathon, or Major League Opening Day? 

 Dare I say? None of the above. 

4. DIY taxes, TurboTax, or CPA?

 CPA, please. Being self-employed is complicated.

5. Raincoat or umbrella? 

 Raincoat... if only I had one. So most of the times it's just a hat and a fast run.

6. Your pilgrimage is to: cherry blossoms, Nordstrom's end of season sale, garden centers?

GARDEN CENTERS! Gotta have a big pot of pansies and another one of basil. To me that says SPRING. Trying to outsmart thee rabbits is a losing gambit. 

 

 LUCY BURDETTE:

1. Hyacinths, tulips, or daffodils?

 Daffodils--so cheerful and early, I find them irresistible! 

2. Asparagus or spring peas?

 Asparagus, but it must be from our garden or a farm nearby. Otherwise it has a bitter taste and I don't even want to mention the aftereffects!

3. The Masters Tournament, the Boston Marathon, or Major League Opening Day? 

 The Masters! Even though most of the current golfers could be my grandchildren. I still love golf and look back fondly at the Golf Lovers Mystery Series!

4. DIY taxes, TurboTax, or CPA?

 CPA. Not even a question!

5. Raincoat or umbrella? 

 Raincoat.

6. Your pilgrimage is to: cherry blossoms, Nordstrom's end of season sale, garden centers?

 Can we do all three please??

 

JULIA: Now it's your turn, dear readers! Cut and paste the questions and give us your answers in the comments!

 

1. Hyacinths, tulips, or daffodils?

 

2. Asparagus or spring peas?

 

3. The Masters Tournament, the Boston Marathon, or Major League Opening Day? 

 

4. DIY taxes, TurboTax, or CPA?

 

5. Raincoat or umbrella? 

 

6. Your pilgrimage is to: cherry blossoms, Nordstrom's end of season sale, garden centers?

I Want Spring Clothing!

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Yesterday's subject was a little bleak, yeah? Sorry. I think this past winter has broken me. I just want to be warm again - not only in my kitchen, when the woodstove's blazing, or in my parlor/office, with the doors shut and my wee electrical hater on. I want it to be warm in my whole house, which I keep VERY cool because, as is common in much of northern New England housing, I heat with fuel oil, which is basically tossing ten dollar bills into the furnace to keep it going.

 

 

I want it to be warm when I'm working outside, and running errands, and going to church (another huge old building! Even with the new electric radiators, most of us wear coats or woolen scarves during mass.)

 

And mostly, I want it to be warm so I can finally toss off my three-layer outfits and bulky sweaters and wear something light and fun and colorful!

 

I know, it sounds so frivolous. But I've been wearing my winter workhorse staples since October, and I've gotten so sick of them. It feels like the only pants I ever put on are black corduroy, red velveteen, and gray flannel. With black cashmere, red wool, and gray alpaca. Sometimes I go wild and wear gray cashmere, black wool, and red alpaca. Woo hoo.

 

It's not a gendered thing, either. I remember my late husband putting on one of his Hawaiian shirts to wear at school despite the early April sleet. He would go out and do the first yard work of the season in his favorite T-shirt. He always denied he was cold - he used to say a native Mainer didn't need anything else when it was 45°/7°.  Maybe. But I suspect he was just as sick of winter clothes as I am now. 

 

I can almost hear them murmuring from the containers beneath my bed and the clothes rack in the attic. "Julia..." they say. "Linen skirts, sleeveless shirts, cropped jeans! Flamingo pink, aqua blue, mango orange!" 

 

Someday, my beloved spring and summer clothing, someday. Yes, it snowed yesterday. Yes, tonight's low will be 24°/-4°. But it won't be cold forever. And I just read we may have a super El Nino year coming, with hotter than usual temperatures! Usually I'm anti-climate change, but after this winter, I may have to change my stance.

 

How about you, dear readers? Are you longing to exchange your  turtlenecks for crop tops? And for those of you living in balmier climes, does the opposite happen? Do you sometimes yearn for boots and sweaters?

Melancholy April

 JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Just about a year ago, I had the great honor to serve as the officiant at the funeral of my best friend's father. He died at 92, still traveling and still independent, so if any death after nine decades an come as a surprise, this one did.

 

While working on his Eulogy, I discovered something startling: there are a vast number of melancholy poems about April. Of course, we all immediately think of TS Eliot - April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land - and Walt Whitman: When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom’d, And the great star early droop’d in the western sky in the night, I mourn’d, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring. 

 

But there's also American poet Delmore Schwartz (1913-1966)

Calmly we walk through this April’s day,   

Metropolitan poetry here and there,   

In the park sit pauper and rentier,   

The screaming children, the motor-car   

Fugitive about us, running away,   

Between the worker and the millionaire   

Number provides all distances,   

It is Nineteen Thirty-Seven now,   

Many great dears are taken away,   

 

 

What will become of you and me

(This is the school in which we learn ...)   

Besides the photo and the memory?

(... that time is the fire in which we burn.)

 

 and Maine's own Edna St. Vincent Millay

To what purpose, April, do you return again?

Beauty is not enough.

You can no longer quiet me with the redness

Of little leaves opening stickily.

I know what I know. 

 Pulitzer Prize winning poet Leonora Speyer (1872-1956) wrote April on the Battlefield shortly after the end of WWI:

April now walks the fields again,
Trailing her leaves
And holding all her buds against her heart:
Wrapt in her clouds and mists
She walks,
Groping her way among the graves of men.

 

And I love this one by contemporary poet Kim Addonizio (b. 1954)  

Watching that frenzy of insects above the bush of white flowers,   

bush I see everywhere on hill after hill, all I can think of   

is how terrifying spring is, in its tireless, mindless replications.   

Everywhere emergence: seed case, chrysalis, uterus, endless manufacturing.

 

I don't know exactly why April gets the greatest share of melancholy. Poems set in December can be wistful, looking backwards, and September has its share of the end of summer and the coming of winter. But a month which should be about showers and flowers and longen to goon on pilgrimages instead inspires a lot of brilliant writers to look out their windows at the gray rain and ponder mortality.

 I wonder if, in the country, it's an historic echo of great trauma of the Civil War, which began April 12, 1861 and ended April 9 1865. Lincoln's assassination only five days later plunged the northern states into mourning, while the south reeled from destruction and humiliation. So many families on either side must have been painfully reminded of their losses each April.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this essay, except perhaps to remind everyone it's okay to feel sad even when the flowers are sprouting and the flowers unfolding in the trees. And also to encourage you to click on the links and read the poems here in whole. 

 Dear readers, what are the parts of spring that delight you, and what aspects of the season makes you, perhaps, a little melancholy?

Spring harbingers

HALLIE EPHRON: Here in New England, we’ve just barely edged into SPRING. The temperature has gone up to 60 (yay!) and daylight savings time kicked in on Sunday (boo!) Today I am trying to pull together my taxes (boo!) and reminding myself that this is very much a first-world problem to have (yay!).

Here’s what’s going on in my garden. *ONE* snowdrop is up.

And a hyacinth trying to sprout has been bitten to the ground by ravenous rabbits who have managed, apparently, to survive the winter and are now nibbling away on just about anything green. All the plants I put in last fall are reputedly rabbit resistant (lavendar, bee balm…) - only time will tell (or “Nous verrons,” as my mother would have said).

The bird bath is still waiting for spring migration and I’m waiting until the mud has hardened on my favorite walking trails.

So what are your ups and downs of the season?

LUCY BURDETTE: Spring in Key West means spring breakers of course! The place is mobbed, and a lot of the visitors are young and here to party.

Aside from that, we are hearing birdsong that’s different from the winter. I’m pretty sure these guys are on their way up to you Hallie (and Hank and Julia!) I do miss spring in New England, however, I can tell from Hallie’s post that it’s too early to head north…

One more special thing we have in Key West–the caterpillars have arrived that will turn into monarch butterflies. The only thing they will eat is the milkweed my neighbor plants. Can’t wait to see them come out!

RHYS BOWEN: I’m in Arizona where spring means a riot of color and blossom. This is truly the best month of the year here with bougainvillea spilling over all the walls, the creosote bushes dotting the mountains with yellow and the palo verde trees about to be covered in yellow blossoms. The weather is perfect–low eighties with cool evenings.

Luckily most restaurants now have patio seating which is a delight. And our daughter’s big back yard, strung with lights and more lights bobbing in the pool, makes a great spot for entertaining. We have the chimenea and heater on when it gets too chilly and stay out until late.

JENN McKINLAY: I’m in AZ like Rhys, and March and April are the last gasp of fabulous weather before the heat starts in May. My front yard is a riot of blooming creosote and cassia bushes and the backyard is bursting with a red blossoms on the trumpet vine along the back wall, drawing in the hummingbirds, and my citrus trees (lemon and lime) are in bloom and the smell is the single greatest scent in the world.

There is nothing like AZ in March. Glorious.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: We are in waiting mode, of course. For the ducks. Flo and Eddy have not made their annual visit yet–this will be maybe their 24th year? This is the week they usually come, so we shall see. (And let’s not talk about ducks’ lifespans. For another time, okay?)

We are seeing only the tiniest tiniest shoots of tulips and crocuses, but not one bit of stem, let alone flower. But we have some adorable snowdrops. And the birds are arriving–juncoes, and cardinals and duets of skittish doves. WAY too soon for the patio lights, and super too soon for the outside grill. We are still in coats.

DEBORAH CROMBIE: Spring seems to be running a little late here in north Texas this year. Usually by mid-March our fruit trees and the redbuds are in bloom, and we might be seeing a few early irises. But this year, nada. I'd even begun to worry that my forsythia was dead, but yay, this morning a few yellow flowers are budding. The crocuses have been and gone, the daffodils have been blooming sporadically since January. We had a late, hard freeze last Friday so I'm holding that responsible for the delay.

However, it is absolutely gorgeous here this week and I have a terrible case of spring fever. The Boston ferns are coming into the nurseries–that's the real marker of spring here. And I'm dying to get and fill those barren pots on my porch and patio!

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: As the official Far Northern Red, I’m lagging behind the rest of you. In southern Maine, we’re usually about two weeks behind what Hallie and Hank are experiencing in the Boston area. I just pretend Lucy, Rhys and Jenn are living in a foreign country.

It’s mud season here - no shoots, no grass, and the buds are still tightly furled. My backyard is a bog with patches of ice wherever the shadows linger. My dirt and gravel driveway (it’s very ecologically sound!) looks like those places where Russian military vehicles have gotten hopelessly stuck. Yep, Putin’s not going to make much headway if he decides to invade Buxton, Maine.

What I do have is indoor spring. I lay bright tablecloths on the tables and have some glorious forced forsythia right where I work. My old house was built to run on sunlight, with large windows everywhere, and with the longer days the rooms are filled with light. It’s been a great week, temperature wise - in the upper forties and fifties! - and though I still have to keep a fire in the woodstove, it heats up the room fast. Sometimes I even take my heavy wool cardigan off. Stop me before I become giddy.

HALLIE: So what's going on in your world? Are you still recovering from "springing ahead"? Suffering through tax season? Or picking your head up out of the weeds and inhaling spring?