When the garden first begins to return in March, I might find something new to get excited about once per week: a snowdrop, a sprout emerging from the cold earth. Now, dozens of new things happen every day. I can sit outside and admire the garden for hours.
Today I wandered around with my camera, then looked back at photos from when I mulched on my gardening vacation in March. It’s so different now, and it’s only May!
I’m still not great with my new camera. At least it’s warm outside now so that my hands don’t freeze while I fumble with the settings. I finally ordered the lens I’ve been saving for; it should arrive this week. I am eager for a fixed focal length and to be able to open the aperture as much as I want to. I worried I wouldn’t get the lens in time for spring flowers, but I think it will be just in time for the tulips, redbud, dogwoods, lilac, and everything else that follows.
Each spring, I take a week off of work to tend to the garden. Mostly this means spreading mulch over all the beds I killed grass for so I can grow butterfly-friendly plants. I’ve lucked out with weather each year, including this one. My vacation began on the spring equinox, and I had five days of sunshine and warm enough temperatures to work in short sleeves.
In previous years, I ordered 12 cubic yards of mulch to be delivered on the first day of my vacation. This year, thanks to the new bed I carved out in winter, I ordered 14 yards.
And it wasn’t enough. I called my mulch guy mid-week, and luckily he was able to deliver two more yards for me while I still had time to spread it. I finished on Friday, just before the rains of the weekend. Now, I’m back to work today, but the garden is ready for April rains, lengthening days, and sunshine. My chairs are out there, ready for me to sit in them as soon as it’s warm enough.
FINALLY. The first day of spring has arrived! Daffodils pop all over town, forsythia canes begin to bloom, and I even saw a dogwood show some white blossoms in our neighborhood. Chartreuse leaf buds fatten on trees and shrubs, and bright green goldenrod leaves shoot up through the leaf litter. I have awaited this day since the first cold of November.
Once I decided to kill more grass, I called my mulch guy to ask if they delivered top soil. He said yes. I got excited, and I asked him for three cubic yards, as soon as possible. That was two weeks ago. A snow storm was on its way at the time, and his dirt was still wet from the last snow. “I’ll call you when the weather is okay to deliver,” he told me.
Thursday afternoon, I was on a run on our second consecutive warm, sunny day — the first sunny days in what seemed like weeks. My phone rang when I was about 10 minutes from home. It was my mulch guy, so I stopped to walk, and panting, I answered the phone. Maybe he could deliver that day!
“Hi! I’m calling about your top soil, the weather finally is clear – ” he said.
“YES!” pant pant. Very excited. Grinning.
“We’re about to get another six days of rain -“
“Can you deliver it today?!” I said. In my excitement, I kept interrupting him.
“Yes. Today is the only day. I’ll be there in 30 minutes. You want it at the top of the hill, yes? I’ll meet you there.”
He delivered it in the late afternoon. I covered it with a tarp as the sky clouded over. With six more days of rain on the way, I wondered when I’d get a chance to spread it. If only I could get the cardboard down and the dirt on top of it, the rainy days would be perfect to water it in and get the cardboard good and soggy so that it will start breaking down at least a little bit before I want to start planting. With potted seedlings, I can dig through the cardboard for their roots to get into the earth. I’m worried about sowing seeds though; if the cardboard is still too stiff and new, and I sow seeds in the dirt on top of the cardboard, their new roots won’t be able to penetrate it. The sooner I can get the cardboard over the grass to kill it, and under the dirt and rain to start breaking down, the better chance my seeds will have.
Yesterday, I couldn’t stand not taking advantage of the coming wet weather. So despite gross gray skies, rain, and a constant drizzle, I decided to go ahead and lay down the load of cardboard I’d collected from a nearby recycling dropoff. The soil was sodden and heavy, and I’m lucky I didn’t throw my back out as I shoveled, wheeled, dumped, and spread. It was pretty grueling work, and I was glad when I was done. Today, I sip coffee at the window and watch with glee as rain soaks my work.
I need maybe one more load of cardboard to finish off the area for my bed. Hopefully by the time I get to that final load, the soil will be drier. And spring will be that much closer by then!
Just after lockdown began, I went for a run. I burst into tears as I ran by tulips that had just opened, and cherry trees in bloom. Their beauty was more than I could bear as I wondered, “Are we going to run out of food? We don’t have a survival plan. Are we all going to die? What does this mean for humanity?” Pink blossoms quivered in sunlight, and I wept.
That was almost a year ago. Flowers and sky, sunshine and water got me through a lot of the pandemic in 2020. When fall arrived, and flowers dropped, and leaves dropped, and temperatures dropped, we moved indoors. I watched the world turn brown. We got snow, which is pretty, and ice, which is pretty, but the winter world is cold and desolate, and after nearly a year of no socializing, no meals in restaurants, no coffee dates with my husband, after nearly a year of all four of us being in the house together, after a year of watching terrible things happen to Black men and women and immigrants and their children, and people dying by the tens of thousands, and ugliness and lies and meanness and vitriol coming from our president, I felt cold and desolate too. And in winter, there are not flowers and sky, sunshine and water to get me through.
Until yesterday. After four weeks of snow storms and ice storms and temperatures consistently below freezing, the sun came out and shone warm. It melted the snow and ice. It warmed the ground. I put on short sleeves to run, and I felt sun on my skin. I smelled the scent of thawing dirt as I ran. I felt heat radiate from the asphalt. I ran under blue sky.
When I returned home, I walked across our lawn, still panting from my run, to check on the bulbs our mail carrier gave us from her garden. Last year they bloomed February 13. I’ve checked them every week in February, through snow and ice, and finally, yesterday, they bloomed.
With these little flowers, I feel a release. I feel like I can make it now. The world around me is thawing. We have a kind and compassionate leader who acknowledges the hurt of the world and wants to help heal it. In a few weeks I will have my annual gardening vacation, where I spend an entire week outdoors, cutting, pruning, shoveling mulch. Soon I will be able to sit on the back deck in the sunlight and watch the world come back to life.
Butterfly Mind 