“Your time has come, now hasten little snowflakes. To vanish quite away; The spring-tide hours are sounding gentle warnings, forbidding you to stay.”
~M.E. Hathaway
As March rolls around, in the Northern hemisphere, gardeners ready for spring. To say we are ‘chomping at the bit’, is an understatement. We tire of winter, the cold and snow. We want to get our hands in the dirt, observe the growth that is starting, see colors like green, and clean up the garden. And those lucky enough to have a warm March begin to plant.
But I am a realist, and know my March is unlike many. It is variable moving from spring-like temperatures to snow storms….like a pendulum swinging wildly never seeing a steady balance. And so it was as March began this past week. We were warned, but we hoped the warnings were overzealous. February had been kind. Many warm thaws with some temps in the 60s and 70s, most days above normal in the 40s. Maybe this March, winter would fade easily to spring.
No such luck as they say. We had a whopper of a storm….an inch of rain, followed by ice, followed by a foot and a half of heavy, wet snow…all in 24 hours. Winter was nudging me gently in February saying it was time to go soon. But I think he felt under appreciated, perhaps, and had to throw himself one heck of a going away party.
This male robin, who returns every year to claim our garden as his spring-summer home, was a bit surprised and miffed by all the snow….he didn’t want to believe the forecast either.
There are definite signs that winter is leaving that I observe each year. Not the glaring signs like the many songbirds returning or bulbs blooming. No, the signs of spring I am referring to are more subtle…and they can happen almost overnight in my garden. When these signs appear I know spring is sighing, letting me know she will be along soon.
Signs like the pond thawing and thinning….its ice cover, moving away from the banks and opening up….
the ground softening and yielding no longer held by winter’s icy grip as it allows the snowy melt to be absorbed…
year-long resident songbirds, like finches and this red cardinal, begin to sing again welcoming spring’s little whispers….
snowdrops pop up forming buds, yearning to bloom….
other very early bulbs begin to peek out and bravely push up a bit, like these snow crocus….
and daffodils.
A bit of a let down all this snow, but I know it will melt, and winter will yield finally to spring. With the bolder signs of spring not here yet, I will have to be patient a bit longer with winter.
Has spring appeared in your garden? Do you have signs that whisper or shout spring’s arrival?
Colorful Indoor Vases
Luckily I have had late blooms indoors to cut for a vase or two as we await spring flowers. This is another ‘Zombie’ hippeastrum bloom with some straggler paperwhites.
I enjoyed moving this vase around to bring its beauty to different spots.
One last ‘Zombie’ bloom capturing the waning light, floating in this lovely cup and saucer.
And again displayed in the early afternoon light.
While these blooms are from a few weeks ago, I didn’t want to miss showing them to you as they were so lovely and faded only recently.
I am joining Cathy@Rambling in the Garden for her wonderful In A Vase on Monday meme. The pictures shared here were created with my iPod Touch camera and two free apps, Pixlr and Prisma.
I am posting poetry, almost weekly on Sundays, on my other blog, Living From Happiness. You can read my latest poem here.
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