Spring: A Time for Opening Up

An individual with a modicum of intelligent emotion once penned that happiness is a way to travel, not a destination.

To me that thought is a passport to find everyday happiness in big things such as God and family, but it opens the door to find happiness in what many may consider the mundane.

The late winter robin, the musty, wonderful smell of damp leaves gathered under an overturned pot, the stiff, green foliage of the first spring crocus bulb, even the steady hum of a mower in the distance. These things bring a degree of happiness to many including this self-taught gardener who has been puttering in the soil for more than four decades.

Whether a gardener's taste leans toward tomato plants and spring lettuce, doctor-office style landscaping, masses of annual bedding plants, a well orchestrated blend of annuals and perennials or a wild mass of English cottage garden, each approach touches on that basic agrarian need to work in the soil and produce.

With spring firmly in place in Morrisons Cove, this first part of April seems like a good time to embark on what hopefully evolves into a give and take of gardening ideas and successes and a forum for addressing problems, garden planning, and what's new on the horizon in terms of plant species and products.

The goal here is to open this dialogue every other week and follow a loosely knit plan that addresses flower, vegetable and shrub gardening.

Herald readers will play a pivotal role in this endeavor with your input setting the pace for topics and discussions. The hope is that the column will provide a forum for problem solving by drawing on a host of bug and soil experts including gardening friends and those well trained government and university sources.

But on to the things that matter:

A little eavesdropping just about anywhere this time of year usually allows one to catch bits of discussion on what's going on outside. The daffodils have been opening up for the past few weeks and they now are putting on a brilliant show of yellow and mixed pastels.

The purple, lavender and golden hues of crocus likewise have been around for a while as hyacinths in all their marvelous glory and fragrance refuse to take a back seat.

Tulips, with pastels shades and more robust reds and yellows are showing off as many of the minor snow drops begin fading into the garden bed.

It is with spring bulbs that nature plays a trick on flower lovers and uses this time to force an exercise in patience.

Taking photos of those blooming fields of daffodils and tulips may serve as an incentive in the fall when they lay as brownish, dry lumps in racks at greenhouse or big box stores.

Recollection brings memories of a young couple at the counter of a local retail outlet one early spring, showing photos of a beautifully built home and announcing plans to purchase hundreds of bulbs, spread them on top of the soil and cover each with top soil.

One wonders how that plan worked out.

Please share your experience with spring bulbs and we'll revisit the topic in late summer at time of planting.

Meanwhile, by and large, while it's too early to work the soil much, early April is a great time to put on the muck boots and do some cleanup.

Get rids of the twigs and branches strewn across the yard. Pull out annuals from garden bed and pots and cut back stems of perennials blowing in the cold breeze.

It might also be a good time to check on ties and string used to anchor small shrubs. Securing the gangly tendrils of a clematis is a lot easier on the grower and the plant now than it will be after it starts blooming.

Editor's Note: Kathy Mellott has chosen to provide her email for readers to reach out in regard to her gardening column. Mellott can be reached at katydidsattic@icloud.com.