Robins for Breakfast

Dozens of robins settled in for breakfast this week. Early in the morning they scuttled around the yard looking for worms wriggling to the soil surface. 

Not for the first time, I wished for a good camera and the expertise to use it. This just doesn't convey their numbers.  They mostly hopped along the ground, occasionally flying low a few feet to where the pickin's looked better. 

Curious about the behavior, I learned that robins cluster like this as they move north. They migrate in stages, prompted to move on by the air and ground temperatures. 

Thus I can use their appearance in the early spring as an indication of warming soil, similar to how forsythia blooms when the ground temperature is about 55 degrees. Forsythia bushes are like a garden alarm. Once you see the yellow flowers, it's time to do some other garden chores.

Now I know to watch for the robins, then the forsythia, then the crabgrass.
It can't be long now, so get ready! 

What are your favorite signs of spring? 

It will always be spring in heaven.

We're moving through the stages of spring too quickly for my tastes. 

I wish the redbuds had lingered in their bloom phase. Now the petals are just  fading pink bits on the deck.

The daffodils stand green and empty like poles without flags.

The dogwood blossoms drop like scraps of paper as leaves push them right off the branch! I don't want the pink ones to ever leaf out!

As a consolation, I watch the fattening iris heads. 

And stop to admire the morning's froth of petite periwinkle flax. 

It is my personal theory that nothing will die in heaven, therefore everything will be in bloom all of the time! Doesn't that thrill my gardener's heart!

Haiku to Hope

Sun's antiphony

rising through winter's tomb

hope wears lemon caps.

Sprigs: Daffodils kick off the gardening year

As far as I'm concerned, daffodils kick off the gardening year.




" I look forward to them every year, and every year they surprise me. That's the point of a garden, though, isn't it? Something to look forward to, something permanent. That's what I want to create here--markers of a year."    Nicola Upson

Next we'll have forsythia, 

lilacs if the weather's right, 

then iris, 

and peonies...

Oh, they're all wonderful and I anticipate every petal.

Sprigs: Swell buds

Two weeks ago I flew to Denver via Dallas. The great plains below me were drab--brown rectangles, tan squares, horizontal harvesting stripes and wavy diagonal plow lines like petrified waves.  The circular fields could have been left-over blast zones from some gigantic rocket launch. Where bare trees grew in clumps, the branches looked liked dusty wool on grey sheep. 




Swell! Buds!

Last week, back in North Carolina, the red plump leaf buds on trees lining  highway 52 near Winston created a thin haze of color in the tree's crown. 











Today, two weeks and two days from official Spring, the daffodil buds are forming and I can see a tinge of yellow in the fattening tips. 

Swell, buds. It's been winter long enough. 

Sprigs: It's 18 degrees, it must be summer somewhere

Gosh golly but it's been too darn cold to even imagine spring. So thank goodness for the equator and regions that can produce long-lasting, graceful alstroemerias in January. 

It's easy to convince myself that if the catalog says you can grow them in zone 7, then I can. (I have found that catalogs vary in labeling a plant for cold hardiness. Be cautious and double check a neutral gardening website for a particular species.)

Despite the supplier's optimistic claim, tall Peruvian lilies have not been successful in my garden. I had a thick stand of the yellow ones for several years. They bloomed well, but there are only a few survivors left. The pink ones sent up leaves but never did bloom.  

If I'd done more research I would have chosen a sunnier-in-the-morning site and heavy winter mulch. I think I know just the spot to try this time. 

In the meantime, I'll hustle back to Lowe's grocery store for my next floral fix, and hope the temperatures moderate.

Sprigs: Vinca

   Vivacious

   Indefatigable

   Naturally 

   Celebrates

mArch