Early Spring Flowers – Gardens For Goldens

This Time It’s Real

It’s finally spring. This time it’s real. I know because the Tulips told me…

the Anemone told me…

the Grape Hyacinth told me…

and the mud fest told me!

“Nothing in the world is friendlier than a wet dog.”

A Change In The Wind

“In the spring I have counted one hundred and thirty-six different kinds of weather inside of four and twenty hours.” ~ Mark Twain

Friday, I played hooky for a few hours and snuck out to the garden. Within minutes, I was peeling off layers like an onion and thinking it was time to move the winter clothes into storage. A week of mid-70’s in early February gets me dreaming about planting spring annuals, but I have wised up a bit through the years.

The city gardens – tucked in and protected from the elements creating their own micro-climate – scream “spring!”

But the Homeward Bound Memorial Garden knows otherwise. A few brave bulbs, the rosemary, and the Ceanothus have appeared,

but the rest of the garden felt a change was in the wind – literally.

It blew in from the north on Saturday – 25 mph of cold in our faces and dropping our reality down a more seasonable twenty degrees. I know. Quit whining. You’re California-spoiled.

Truth be told, none of us are quite ready for spring yet. Spring means summer – and those 100+ degree days will be here soon enough.

So stay tucked under the covers little bulbs, and don’t quite unwrap yet tiny buds –

We’ll take a few more weeks of sweatshirts and Golden blankets.

And some rain would be lovely, too.

“The course of the seasons is a piece of clock-work, with a cuckoo to call when it is springtime.” ~ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Nature Finds A Way

Given that our Memorial Garden was under water just a week ago, I was surprised and amazed to find it beginning to bud and bloom.

It seems impossible that the bulbs, plants and trees survived submersion for so long and still pushed forward to beckon spring.

Mother Nature is nothing if not persistent. She has her limits, mind you, but a plant’s purpose is to go forth and produce the leaves from which it feeds and seeds it sows to ensure its future.

“The greatest oak was once a little nut who held its ground.” ~ Author Unknown

Nature finds a way.

It’s an important reminder. When obstacles block our path and threaten what we believe to be right, fair, and true to our purpose – like nature – we need to adapt until we find our way beyond the barrier.