Bed Measures of Man

Saturday last was a glorious, windless, sunny day of almost 70ºF here on the Kansas prairie, a premature peek at the spring season before winter rallies once again.  ProfessorRoush took advantage of the good-natured weather to begin his spring chores and he bounded madly out with shears, sprayer and sheetbarrow to work for a few cherished hours.

As I removed vast tons of brown winter debris, trimmed a few roses, sprayed the fruit trees with dormant oil, and puttered here and yon with gleeful abandon, I also spent some time in general pondering, mulling once more over the beginning of another year in an aging but happy life.  And it occurred to me that, other than merely making my muscles sore and strained, the measure of my accomplishments on this Saturday could be calculated in beds.  In all, I cleared the debris from 7 beds, or about 3 of the 4 sides of the house.  It was thus a record day, a 7-bed day, in the annals of my gardening life.

It seems to me that one can ultimately measure one's health, aging processes, and perhaps even the advancement of one's wisdom by keeping track of the number of beds one can clean on a first day of spring.  I was certainly pleased on this Saturday that there was no measurable decrease in the number of beds I was able to clear from last year.  In fact, I was even more productive than ever, a gain that I would like to attribute to working wiser, not harder, as I age.  Certainly, I surprised even myself by finding that the abrasion of time has yet to seriously cramp my gardening agenda.

While mulling, my thoughts also turned to how many of the decades of man can also be measured by a number in beds.  As a child, happiness is roughly equivalent to the number of warm and safe beds into which one has been snugly and tightly tucked.  Active pre-teen and teenage males often measure their vitality in the number of uncomfortable but adventurous beds they make in tents or under stars.   Young adult men of my post-hippie generation (and likewise those of all generations reaching back to the Babylonians), measure their victories in the number of strange beds in which one spent a night, a contest that I gladly surrendered to others after I discovered the joys of repeated moments in the embrace of Mrs. ProfessorRoush.  Here in middle age, I'm happy counting in gardening beds, but I recognize that life by garden beds can only last so long.  Old men, too, have a different sort of measure by beds; the measure of how many hospital beds one either avoids or is forced into.

The latter, though is in the future for this gardener.  Today is the feel of sunshine, the buttery yellow of the first snow crocus, warm mulch beneath my knees, and sharp shears in my hands.  

Begging On My Knees

Even the strongest relationships have to dig through rocky ground from time to time, and the bond between my garden and I has been similarly strained to the breaking point.  I admit that I have neglected her over the winter, lavishing my attentions on other interests, and, in turn, she has given me only cold and brief bitter love for the past few months.  She, too, has turned to others, allowing deer to roam over her surface at will, letting pack rats and rabbits nibble her most delicate stems, while showing me only unmade beds and unkept tresses.  Here, in early March, I've experienced weeks of cold beds and stony silence and we are, understandably, no longer on good speaking terms.

Yesterday, I sensed a slight thaw to the distance between us, and I took advantage of the first warm Saturday in eons to shower my darling with attention and patch up our difficulties.  Although my enthusiasm was low, I put on a brave face and began cleaning up the front landscape, removing the blemishes of winter, kneeling at the feet of the Goddess Gaia and freshening her couture.  Out went the flattened peonies, the rattling Babtista seed pods, and the hollow stalks of long deceased lilies.  I wrestled with dead thorns and desiccated clematis, shaped willow and arborvitae, and trimmed iris to flattering fans.

Yet still, beneath the warm mulch, her ground is frozen and hard.  There is little life there, little stirring in her heart.  Oh, a few infant sedums are hiding deep in the mulch and the snow crocus pictured here are trying to lure me back, but Spring is far away and the daffodils have just broken ground and the peonies are absent and tardy.  Other years, I would have been planting seed by now, planning for the ripeness of early June.   This year my garden is making me earn back her love, making me beg for forgiveness, demanding penance for my neglect.

I had a quiet conversation yesterday with  my young, 'Emperor 1' Japanese Maple.  I scratched his bark to its green core and assured myself of his survival, and we agreed between us that the love of a Garden is often fickle and fraught with communication issues and wandering attentions.  Consoled with the companionship of another lucky winter survivor, I put my tools back away, biding my time while her affections thaw, another patient suitor who hopes that time and attention will heal the bonds of love.

  

Encore! Encore!

I'm sorry, Mother Nature, you must have misunderstood me.  I was not shouting "Encore!  Encore!" in hope of seeing winter continue.  I was shouting "No more, no more!"  Not even the best available weathermen and scientists predicted yesterday that I would wake up to more snow from you this morning. When will it end?

You are getting old and hard of hearing, aren't you? Fighting to stay when you should be welcoming rebirth and youth.  Now look where we are, my crocus babies shivering and buttoned up to hide from your icy touch.  Trust me when I recommend that you let those last tired, cold, and scrawny bones of Old Man Winter splinter and crack back to dust.  Let winter go.  I'm done with it and you should be too. Stop trying to cling to last year victories and move on.  Please.

Let Spring cover naked limbs with fresh new wood, sprout plump buds that seep sticky sap, and ripen flowers that open to sunshine.  Let light green leaves be your epitaph, shiny new skin to cover the tortures of winter.  Let roots warm and stretch beneath the soil to welcome rain and feel the embrace of earth.  Let fruit swell and blush and drop for the nourishment of all.  Fight not against life's end, but welcome at last the cycle of renewal .  Live again as moonlight and warmer winds, as brighter sunshine and as dewdrops.



Oh my beautiful snow crocus, mere yellow streaks now, memories of the glorious palette of creams and yellows from only yesterday.  Will you come back?  Encore, crocus! Will you wait out the frozen rain to bloom again this year?  Encore, crocus! How much more can you take?  How much more can I take?       

Acquired Yellows

At this early date, there are two and only two blooming plants in the garden of ProfessorRoush; both  falling somewhere into the ugly brassy or chrome yellow range of the flower world.  Adding to my gardening irritation factor, they are also about 2 weeks later than in the average year.  These lovely plants are, of course, some yellow snow crocus and my 'Jelena' witch hazel.   I'm not at all sure that I like either of them, but now, a brief week or two past the snow and in contrast to the tired color of the dried grass everywhere else in my landscape, I suppose I should take what I can get.

My acceptance, nay, my naked lust, for snow crocus is based entirely on the fact that they are the first blooms I see every year.  If they flowered in late April in the wake of larger and flashier tulips and daffodils, I'd never grow them.  If they bloomed in September, just past the burning fires of August, I might give them the time of day but I also still might not grow them.  They're just too low to the ground and small to receive notice.  Still, I'm thankful every year when I see them in March.

Besides, I'm not that crazy about yellow flowers in general.  I was interested to learn recently that yellow is supposed to be the color of the "mind and the intellect," for those who follow the "psychology of yellow,"  whatever that is.  Yellow "relates to acquired knowledge," and "resonates with the left (or logical) side of the brain stimulating our mental faculties and creating mental agility and perception."  It "talks," it is "non-emotional", it is the "entertainer, the comic, the clown."   Poppycock!  The only part of that I agree with is the "acquired knowledge" part.  After years of hard-won gardening efforts, I acquired the knowledge that the first two plants that will survive a Kansas winter and bloom are two screaming yellow plants;  snow crocus and witch hazel.

As for the witch hazel, my devoted readers know that I've struggled with it here on the Kansas prairie.  I've never been impressed with the bloom and its impact on my Spring garden, but for the first time, I'm a little closer to tolerance for it.  My 'Jelena' has finally bloomed with enough gusto that I can see that it is blooming over ten feet away.  That's not much, but it's a worthwhile beginning on the road to acceptance, and what I've seen is enough for me to keep the plant around for another year of growth.  Perhaps, someday, I can hope to see it blooming from the house windows so that I don't have to walk right up to the plant to check on it.    

Life Against The Odds

When finally melts incessant snow,
When arctic winds no longer blow,
When I've succumbed to Winter's woe,
I'm rescued by sweet crocus.

Just as I have lost all hope,
When I no longer seem to cope,
When I become a forlorn mope,
I'm rescued by snow crocus.

Deep beneath the snow and ice,
Growing, stretching, green and nice,
My spirit lifted up in trice,
Relieved from gloom by crocus.

Gold and white, soon blooms will come,
And I'll be fine, no longer glum,
Because beneath the snow was some,
Gorgeous, lifting, thriving crocus.

At last the deep snow here in the Flint Hills has melted, though out my window even more currently floats down to a warmer earth where slush and muck are taking hold.  Morning sleet turned to snow now, which becomes needed rain on the pavement.  Here and there, a remnant patch of snow and ice hide from the weather, clinging to the north sides of ditches and trees, surviving only where former drifts were deep and wide.  Today's high 48F, tomorrow's 57F will assure that the snow stays in memory, no threat to return in the foreseeable future.

The snow melt left my garden a swamp, the frozen ground reluctant to imbibe the liquid cold which seeks only a return to earth.  The former dry and tall grasses are bent low and sodden by the weight of the previous ice, soon a decaying mass on the prairie floor.  Shrub branches are barren, rose canes and thorns are exposed, and clematis and sweet pea are ethereal ropes dancing in the wind, torn free from their trellises.  Magnolia pods are tightly held, fruit tree buds are hard as nails, and branches everywhere are brittle and sapless, not yet ready to chance growth.

But in a western bed, beneath the dormant lilacs, I've found the nascent life in my garden.  And I am ever faithful that warmth and sunshine will spread this life from here across the garden and then across the prairie.  These snow crocus soon to flower and welcome the oncoming Spring to Kansas also carry my spirit upward, free again from the bonds of Winter's fury, soaring to sunshine and dreams on golden stamens.  Here now is hope, here relief, here life.        

Crocus Clairvoyance

Clairvoyant.  Psychic.  Prescient.  Prophetic.  Absolutely none of those words ever pertain to the grounded, rational, and reasoned ProfessorRoush.  I am often so obtuse to hints by Mrs. ProfessorRoush that she has learned to slowly and carefully spell out her wishes and desires when she wants me to be aware of them.  If she wants to take a drive in the country, she hands me my keys and my coat and says "here, you're going to take me for a drive in the country."  If she wants to have scrambled eggs on Sunday morning, the poor neglected wife says "I'd like to have two scrambled eggs this morning.  Would you cook them for me please?  Not one, not three, just two."  You get the picture.  Some husbands would take offense at being ordered around in such fashion but I accept it as the only proven route for her to penetrate my thick skull short of a frying pan.

It was therefore with some surprise that a mere two days after my Winter Nadir post,  I found these glorious expressions of life on a walk across my otherwise brown and winter-worn landscape.  These brave new sproutlings are, of course, snow crocus (Crocus chrysanthus), otherwise hereafter known to my soul as the gentle gift of a benevolent God.  The perfect golden-yellow heads brushed on the reverse with a deep-purple brown have popped up even before the frost-bitten leaves that will sustain their beauty, but up they are, here, there, and increasingly everywhere.  Even more uplifting are the orange centers as they open, shining like a beacon of onrushing Spring. 

I was sibylline not once, but twice regarding the snow crocus this year.  In the past, I had just a few small clumps of these early yellow beauties, probably sown from a $2.00 bag of 5 at a big-box store at some unremembered time.  I've always enjoyed them when they appeared, but never felt they were extraordinary.  But last summer I somehow knew, 6 months before the onset of winter and then in the midst of scorching drought, I somehow knew that this year I would desperately need to see these foretellers of sunny days and soft rains, more desperately and deeper than previous years.  I ordered and planted over 100 of these cute little creatures, concentrating them on a spot where I'd know to look for them in Spring, and massed so that they wouldn't disappear into the sea of brown I currently refer to as a garden.  And up they have now come, each individual adding to a display that I hope by next week can be seen from more than a few feet away.

On the arid Kansas prairie, Siberian Squill and daffodils do return in dependable fashion, but they won't bloom for a few weeks yet.  Other early bulbs, such as Snowdrops, bloom as annuals or at best short-lived perennials, but fade away and disappear within several years unless carefully pampered.  Larger crocus, the Dutch crocus for example, return each year but usually are torn to bits by the winds before I can appreciate them.  It is only these little bold explorers that I can count on, that I did count on this year, to pull me from hibernation to life.  Although the view out my window still looks as bleak as the picture below, I know now that somewhere, amidst the brown grasses and mulch, life stirs again.  Thank you, Mr. and Mrs. Snow Crocus.

Bit of Yellow

Here is it again, another sign of an incredibly early Spring.  My first glimpse of yellow Snow Crocus (Crocus chrysanthus) occurred this year on 2/22/12.  The previous record of my notes was on 2/25/09.  In 2009, I have a note that the forsythia started on 3/6/12;  which means that we're only a couple of weeks off of undeniable Spring.  And I've done absolutely nothing yet to clear the garden, dormant spray the fruit tress, or cut off the ornamental grasses. As it so happens, though, this afternoon is supposed to reach a sunny high of 67F, so I'm already planning to play hooky after lunch.  See ya tomorrow with a full report!

Golden Teases

Crocus chrysanthus 'Goldilocks'

Well, for a very short time, we almost had a glimpse of Spring here in the Flint Hills.  Every year, I carefully scrutinize my Witch Hazel (Hamamelis x intermedia 'Jelena'), and also the locations of previous snow crocus for their first blooms.  And this weekend, suddenly there it was; the snow crocus that was nowhere to be seen a week ago suddenly popped up and is showing a little flirtatious yellow to tempt me into premature excitement.  One glance and my spirit soars and my heart races at the sight of the brazen little wench.  Spring has sprung!

But alas, the coy little lass will have to gather her petticoats back around her and hold on for a later opportunity because we are under a Winter Storm Watch and have 3-6 inches of snow predicted this afternoon and evening.  As is common for the Great Plains, we went from the 70's when the picture above right was taken to a daytime high in the 30's in less than 24 hours this past weekend.  And four days later, here comes the snow.

I don't even remember how I came to have these few clumps of snow crocus, but they're planted beneath my forsythia and, true to their name, they often bloom during and through the late winter storms for me.  Yellow always blooms first, followed by the white and purple. I also don't know why I have not divided these clumps or purchased more, since they are so important to my spring mental health.  I don't recall seeing them frequently in fall stock at the "Big Box" stores and since I purchase most of my spring bulbs in bulk in those stores, it could be simply that I haven't had my memory jogged about them.  However, I should have ordered some last year when I mail-ordered a group of Lycoris squamigera if I'd had my wits about me.  I must redouble my efforts in this regard.  The Snow Crocus that I adore (Crocus chrysanthus) are actually just the earliest blooming of four common Crocus species (including Crocus vernus, the Dutch Crocus) which are all sometimes popularly called Snow Crocuses.  And to confuse the matter, there are a handful of obscure and more rare Crocus species that can be obtained by collectors.  The Dutch Crocus blooms well here, but the Kansas wind rapidly shreds the blossoms, so enjoyment of them is a fickle possiblity for me, while the smaller and shorter C. chrysanthus are much more reliable bloomers.

   

Daffodil stems

Of course, another first sign of spring that just appeared are the daffodil stems beginning their push towards the sunlight.  As a less-experienced gardener, I used to worry incessantly about these on colder nights and sometimes kicked more mulch over them or even covered them with blankets. Wisdom and laziness now prevail and I let Mother Nature take care of these in her own time.  They seem to survive the frosts and bloom just as well without me as they did with me.

As gardeners, we like to pretend we have an effect on our gardens, but at the final measure, perhaps our gardens just patiently tolerate our efforts and hope we don't cause them more harm than good.