Spring Returns

Remember this photo of my 'Annabelle' lilac, covered in snow a scant twelve days ago?  Remember my whining about how spring was canceled this year?  Remember my ridiculous suggestion to give up all gardening hope?  Well, please excuse my pouting and pessimism.  Kindly overlook my oblivious and obnoxious crying over spilled milk.  Try your very best to forget my fitful fantasies of failure.  Spring was not vanquished, but briefly delayed.  Winter was not victor, but fleeing bully.  The resilience of time and life has yet taken the field and won the day, fray behind and glory restored.

'Annabelle' went on through snow to beauty, blooms galore, battle-tested.  That's her, at upper right and left, proudly adorned in flowerly spendor.   She shines right now, a fragrant beacon in my landscape, the belle of the ball.  Not a single blossom shows damage, not a single stem was broken.  Nothing but shy pink and delicate lilac shows in each perfect petal.  A soft orb of scent, she dominates in every direction, albeit farther downwind than upwind.  She seized her moment of spring glory, determined not to surrender this year to mediocrity.  I applaud and appreciate her tenacity, the hidden strength among her branching limbs, the subtle brawn of her delicate blossoms.




Others too have fought their way back.  A brief glance at my side patio and the scene becomes a spring party.  Mrs. ProfessorRoush's favorite tree, a redbud, dominates the scene, a manly pink physique lording over its lesser neighbors.  'Annabelle' hides behind his trunk in this photo, pink bubbles peaking out on either side.  Behind and left a cherry tree, 'Northwind' is clothed in the promise of fruit.  Bees prefer the cherry to 'Annabelle', a poor choice in the gardeners eye, but the latter judges with binocular rather than compound vision and with vulgar appreciation for fragrance rather than subtle judgment of sugary goodness. The bee knows best its business and I know nothing of hunger for cherry nectar.

Spring, it seems, was not lost, but was merely misplaced, astray from the straight path forward.  It returns now, two steps forward, one back, the patience of the gardener teased with the promise of sunshine.