The Call of Nature

Kumson

I think yellow is the color of early spring. It seems to be everywhere: the daffodils, the forsythia (‘Kumson’, right) blooming in pots, and the big yellow twig weeping willow. Even the finches get into the act by changing from their dull winter browns to neon yellow. It catches the eye and lifts the heart with the thought and hope of spring.

As rocky as the economy gets, gardens and gardening will always be just what it always has been, we can count on that. Garden ups and downs can only come from, say, the weather or garden-eating animals or my unwillingness to do the work I know needs to be done. We can adapt our gardens to almost all of these conditions to ride out the rocky times. Plant drought resistant plants, deer proof plants, be more diligent with weeding. In gardening we can be pro-active and take control of our gardens; we have so much control. We can make them as big or as small a garden as we feel like working in. It doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task. A beautiful container at the door is a garden.

This spring, thanks to a very good friend Clara’s suggestion we are going to have two classes that speak to the ability to put a garden anywhere. The first will be an English trough class and, in the next, we will be making a fairy garden in the troughs. Fairy gardens are those petite magical gardens that a fairy would love to inhabit. Gardens don’t have to be the size of Versailles to stop the heart and make you sigh. Sometimes being here at the nursery I am struck by people who like the idea of gardening but think it’s too much work The problem is just semantics. Maybe we could call it "earthly meditation" or "communing with plants" instead of "work." Remove the old idea of toiling away in the hot sun with a hoe, and replace it with the idea of a quiet time to hear the call of the natural world again. You can be anywhere, in a city on a balcony, or in the country, the natural world is always calling we just have to be quiet enough to hear it. And if we listen close enough, we might even hear one of those fairies.

Happy Spring!