If you live anywhere near our large local inland lake, you may know the tremendous ice shoves that can occur towards spring... not the case here however... this is the result of cleaning out the drifts in the little town road that runs past our gardens. We're not particularly concerned about how much spring rain we'll be getting, believe it or not.
We walked through the gardens this afternoon, or at least the parts that we could get through... the rabbits (bunnies is far too kind a term) are out in full force and in many spots the snow is standing four feet deep around the magnolias, making the branches and buds well within reach of their gourmet tastes. We observed lots of damage, between the creatures and broken branches from our many heavy snowfalls throughout the winter. Were we not involved in gardening for over forty years, we could well be discouraged, but this is nothing new. Our best advice to young gardens in similar climates... don't measure your garden by what it looks like in March... things will improve (much of the beauty is resting under the earth) and a little pruning will solve a great many other concerns. It's simply not worth fretting over... it always gets better!
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| I have an awful feeling that the live trap is in the greenhouse... now where's my shovel? |
Wherever we go we hear people complaining about this long winter.... little do they recall that winter really didn't begin until almost Christmas. As non-gardeners, they have no concept of what a couple weeks of 80's in March did to the magnolias last year. We well remember the three to four hours daily spent covering and uncovering when the weather returned to frosty temperatures. Many of these poor souls are the ones who our friend Frog Pond has actually heard refer to magnolias as those messy trees that leave petals on the grass. For us, these magnolias are a small part of the wonderful gardening world that actually keeps the blood coursing through our tired vascular systems when the drifts are deep throughout the gardens.
We have no spring fever, only a sense of thankfulness that winter still has us in her grip and we really hope it stays that way for another month... then let the fireworks begin! Larry
...and now...yet another ode to spring...
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