So much for the end of the heating season--we've got hail and sleet, temperatures back in the 30's, and nasty roads. We also have our first daffodils in bloom, in the former laundry sink that's now a planter in front of our house. When I noticed the patch of yellow yesterday I was so surprised that at first I thought it was a candy wrapper that had gotten caught. These are miniatures (always the first to bloom for me): tiny and perfect and covered in ice. Poor things.
Most of my full-size daffs are showing buds, too. I decided to give in to my daffodil love last fall and planted them in a bunch of beds and borders that had previously been daff-free, and the project took me until December to finish. Most of the new ones are well up, but the last ones, the ones that only went in in December, were nowhere to be seen and I was despairing of them until this week. But if you get close to the dirt you can see the very tops of the leaves poking up, green and distinct.
Yesterday the co-op had pansies and other annuals on sale and Z. and I picked out a flat of the most purplest ones; now they're sojourning in the kitchen. I had this idea about planting the zenobias earlier in the week. Thank goodness I didn't have time.
And how are the zenobias doing? you ask. (I know you've all been losing sleep over this.) The answer is, they're still in my living room, which is still cold, and they've broken dormancy. Both are greening up and have new growth, which means I'll need to harden them off before planting. Not too big a deal, I hope.
I realize that being a gardener is really a way of being highly attuned to the weather. I wonder if other SAD (seasonal affective disorder) sufferers are drawn to gardening? I think this is my favorite season in the garden, because it still look so ratty but it's coming back to life. I'm not much good at doing fall clean-up, so there are dead perennials and vegetable stakes and red plastic tomato mulch and all sorts of things strewn around and the whole place looks fairly abandoned. But if you pay close attention to the dirt you'll see amazing things coming out of it. Blood-red tips of bleeding hearts, fleshy tulip leaves, furled tips of trillium, leafy and chthonic in equal measure.
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I'm terrible at doing fall clean-up too - I've been wandering around in the jardin this week (when it's been nice out, that is), and pushing away all the debris from the fall to see what's coming up so far. It warms my heart to see the little tiny green leaves of the alchemilla, and the red red buds of the peony.
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