I could tell this morning, when the birds were louder than the chuckle and siss of my coffee maker, that spring has sprung officially and certainly, no doubt about it. It even seemed almost a little easier to bounce out of bed this morning. Now that the forsythia is in full bloom I think it’s time to really pay attention or the next thing you know it’ll be mid-summer! Do you have color associations for the different phases of the seasons? Spring, to me, is a bright yellow and light greenish feathery time and then there’s an early summer shift to pale blue. It seemed like a lot of people walking the property today were in my early summer color - there’s a lot of blue going on and I don’t think everyone was decked out for our superstar garden and archives volunteer, Mary - or maybe they were! We, the staff, and a few volunteers definitely were. Here’s all of us wearing blue. We love you, Mary!

I’m not sure what happened to the lull I mentioned last week - it’s over and we’re already in 4th gear revved to full speed ahead. We started moving some of Dick’s and our vegetables outside to harden off and yesterday the Rockettes deadheaded the hydrangeas by the summer house and Gail and Joel and I started moving shrubs and the last few perennials out of the Idea Beds. (More on the Idea Bed redesign later.) We also planted out the foxgloves we babied in the greenhouse over the winter and helped the Florabundas cut back the old liriope leaves in the bed by the Moongate. If the days weren’t so beautiful our crews might have complained bitterly about their hydrangea and liriope chores being like deadheading the Coryopsis ‘Moonbeam’ - which if you’ve ever attempted that task you know it’s tedious-ridiculous-endless. We don’t have any ‘Moonbeam’ in the gardens anymore…

And I can’t leave out the daffodil report. It’s so close to peak I’m calling it pretty nearly peak. The next couple of days are forecasted stunners and I think that the buds that are poised to open might just have to pop. We still think full and total peak will occur this weekend and into and beyond next week as long as the weather cooperates. Keep an eye on the forecast and please come through whenever you can!

Does this look familiar? Now is when I officially might start repeating myself - exactly one year ago tomorrow I wrote Blithewold’s first ever blog post - I kid you not. It’s Blithewold’s anniblogiversary!! And it’s truly déjà vu all over again because it looks for all the world like we’re on the same track as last year. Here’s my first post - should I just say “ditto”? This morning a few regular Deadheads, a couple of new faces and Joel potted up about 200 cuttings and transplanted at least as many seedlings. (What would we do without the volunteers?) Just like last year, tomorrow promises wind and we’ll definitely start cleaning up the North Garden this week. No doubt I’ll even want to wax rhapsodic all over again about those adorable little velvet accordian fold Alchemilla mollis (Lady’s mantle) leaves hidden under last seasons scrunky dead stuff. (I mentioned to Julie how much I love cleaning up the Lady’s mantle and she looked at me like I was painted purple. Come on! What’s not to love about that job?)

As gardeners we’re used to doing the same thing over and over, year in and out (dig, plant, weed, repeat). It’s a good thing our gardens are never the same twice though because I’d hate for this part of my job to become redundant. One of the most rewarding things - and the one I had no real idea of when I proposed writing a blog for Blithewold - was getting to meet such an amazing group of gardeners from all over the world. I live for your comments (I can hear the new-mail chime on my computer from the other end of the greenhouse) and just as the gardens wouldn’t be as beautiful without the volunteers, this blog wouldn’t be as writable without all of you. Thank you for a fabulous year and please join me for another!

I have to admit that on my rainy ride home from the airport last week I despaired of seeing spring anytime soon here. Anyone who has ever ridden down Rt. 24 between Boston and Fall River knows “bleak” - even on a sunny midsummer’s day that’s a dreary drive. But now that I’m off that highway and back at Blithewold I’m convinced that something is really actually happening spring-wise. And it seems like it’s happening a lot sooner than last year. Look at this post from last April 9. - And this is now - almost 2 weeks sooner.

But it all depends on the weather. Last year I noted in my calendar that the 1st daffs were spotted in the Bosquet on April 3 but that peak wasn’t until the week of the 23rd! In between we had had a few monster storms and I sprayed shading on the sweltering greenhouse twice. This year, who knows? (anyone? anyone?)

I think the early Easter has me all unstuck in time - I had to look up how the Church determines the date: It’s set to be on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. This was the earliest Easter in something like 95 years. Is the early full moon affecting our gardens or just my mind? (–There is a discrepancy some years between the astronomical and ecclesiastical dates of the equinox - to test my early moon= early spring theory I’ll have to start paying closer attention to the sky rather than to the date breakfast is served with a side of jelly beans and marshmellow peeps.)

But I swear something’s happening and it seems early. The birds are making a racket, Gail has heard peepers and we’re all getting out of the house. The volunteers got outside this week to clean up Display Garden beds and start on the Rock Garden and the Florabundas got started with lots of laughs and some Rose Garden pruning. And the guys, who flinched and fled before my camera like paparazzi plagued rock stars, have been busy lifting heavy things in the Display Garden and initiating Joel - I’ll only call him “The New Guy” this once. (Welcome to Blithewold, Joel!)

According to my calendar, we’re right on schedule…

Do you keep a calendar from year to year? Have you felt a difference in timing only to discover from your notes that it’s going like clockwork? Do you dare to make bloom time predictions in your garden?

Let’s start at the very beginning
A very good place to start

Now that you are all enjoying a Rodgers and Hammerstein earworm like me, I can tell you spring has officially sprung at Blithewold. There’s something that happens in the 3rd week of February - have you noticed a change? We mark it in our calendars every year. The sun is a certain smidge higher in the sky so when it’s out - even if there’s a frigid wind like there’s been this week, the greenhouse toasts right up. The birds have noticed the change too and I’ve noticed them - just this week. There’s a guy outside the potting shed right now singing and chattering away all about how cool he is. (I agree that he’s a studmuffin but he does go on and on…)

And - drum roll please - it’s spring because we started sowing seeds! I think gardeners know the answer to the chicken/egg conundrum - what comes first, the plants or the seeds? - it’s the seeds, obviously -duh! Gail and Lilah (who - three cheers! - will be our intern this summer) did a bench full of 17 varieties of sweet peas. We don’t knick or soak our sweet pea seeds because we’re not in a rush for them to germinate. We sow 2 seeds per peat pot in damp potting soil (Metro mix 360 with coir) and we water them in and keep them in one of the cool greenhouses (night temps around 50 degrees F). Knock wood, most germinate within a couple of weeks - the red varieties are sometimes slower . No matter when sweet peas get their start, they’ll bloom around the same time because they’re day length dependent.

Dick (vegetable garden volunteer extraordinaire) also came in to go through his seeds and he couldn’t wait a moment more to start leeks, onions, strawberries and artichokes. Did you know artichokes need a period of vernalization - temperatures in the mid 30’s to 50’s in order to produce tasty flowers late summer?

During the flurry of seeding activity, Julie (Blithewold’s director of horticulture) and Tara (the princess) came to prune the 40 year old Calamondin Orange. Every year around this time, Julie gives the tree her trained eye and a trim and every three years or so she root prunes as well. It has gotten to the size and age now that we really should root prune more often. It didn’t just pop out of the pot like we thought it might and we had to ask the Men to work their muscle magic. (They used a saw. I gotta get me one of those.)

Julie cut away not quite a third of the roots altogether (a third is the general rule of greenthumb). She cut away from the top edge, scored triangle chunks out of the sides and sliced through the dead feeders that had been up against the pot. She trimmed a good 5 inches off the bottom as well. Early spring is the time for root pruning because that’s when the plants are programmed to put on new growth. For some plants, root pruning in the fall can induce permanent dormancy (call it death).

Anyone else out there who couldn’t wait another minute to start some seeds or do spring chores?

Gardens are not always just about plants. As a matter of fact, I think the plants are a bit beside the point. A lovely garden is lovely because someone made it so. Just like how a meal cooked “with love” actually tastes more flavorful (it’s a proven fact), a garden planted and tended with love is a thousand times more beautiful than any other. You know it’s true when you’re in it. There’s a certain something that’s hard to identify. It’s almost as if it’s sighing or telling jokes or smiling shyly. Loved gardens have personality.

Last week one of the Rockettes died. As wrenching as it is to lose her, we have to remember that Pat is not actually lost to us because she left us Blithewold. Just like everyone who has tended this place since its beginning and everyone who tends it still, she planted a bit of herself in the gardens. I know she loved it here. And the gardens are spectacular because of it.

The Rock Garden especially was Pat’s although she gave a willing hand in every garden on the property even on her “days off”. I can so easily conjure a picture of her walking with a slight tilt, hatless down the lane to the Rock Garden, weeder in hand chatting (telling proud grandmother stories) with friends who must miss her madly now. And in the garden I see her on all fours knowing just what to do. Completely down to earth in more ways than one. I can’t claim to have known her at all well but I would want her grandchildren to know that I adored her and felt a connection to her even if it was mostly this place. I won’t forget her energy even when she was tired and her perennially positive vibe (even in stinky weather and finally poor health) and her chuckle. She’s left us a beautiful Blithewold but there’s a hole in the garden.

I can’t let a 15th of any month go by anymore without a peruse for blooms for Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day - now a year old at May Dreams Gardens! This time of year it’s not easy to find outdoor blooms - I actually can’t tell if the hellebore is blooming today or still fully in bud (I didn’t want to track footprints into the bed to investigate)! More shall be revealed with the melt… Like most gardeners with a real hibernation style winter, we have more blooms indoors. Here is a little greenhouse selection:

Today at Blithewold has otherwise been about undoings. The garden volunteers came in to help finish un-decorating the house. It was a morning of organized chaos; a calm implosion of glitter and ribbon and a chance to reconnect with friends after the holidays. There is something about undoing that is a lot like gardening - it’s fairly tedious and yet relaxing (or is it mind-numbing? This group who spooled miles of tulle called it some kind of therapeutic - “moron therapy” I think it was…) and it’s completely gratifying to see the tree un-ornamented and boxes neatly packed and labeled - like finally taking a good satisfied look at the garden you spent all morning on your knees weeding. It seems like we only just decorated the tree and it will seem like only another moment before we’re back in the gardens together again. A couple of garden volunteers were honored at lunch today - Ann A. is beginning her 31st year in the gardens and Louise W. her 26th - that’s amazing dedication and devotion! And this gardener was honored and completely undone - I know now what it means to be “showered”! I’m going against the grain to include this picture of me (this blog is about Blithewold!) but I want those of you to whom my back was turned to see the giant grin you placed on my face (the tears didn’t show in the photo). Merci beaucoup beaucoup beaucoup!!