Early March Yard Ramblings
I walk around the yard these days and I get glimpses of life pre-Forest. I will never be that same person, have those same moments, but I get glimpses. It’s peaceful, and yet still incredibly fast-paced and definitely not still. Just being able to notice the sun (Earth) changing positions as it heads towards spring, seeing the different ephemeral weeds popping up in the yard, or the budding of the trees; those were things I barely caught a glimpse of last year.
As much as I get those pre-Forest glimpses I really, really love the here and now with Forest as he wanders the yard. He loves it so much and I love how he spots a flower and has to have it, picking it to hand to me or casually abandon to the grass for another flower-picking target. I can’t wait for him to get his own plot of dirt to play in, or to find bugs and amphibians (maybe reptiles—can we stick to lizards, dude?) to play with.
The yard is sprinting fast towards summer. The bulbs, much to my dismay, are already fading and the transition to wildflower season is on. February? What happened to you?
Because the winter was so mild, many more sensitive plants did not die to the ground as the normally would have. It will be interesting to see just how much more growth they put on the rest of the year. One plant in particular is the Mexican flame vine, a plant that in years past would have died completely to the ground before we even got to see it bloom. This year, however, while it got nipped in late January by a light freeze, it has put on blooms for us to enjoy. I suspect we will see more in the coming months and I’m completely thrilled about that!
The fruit trees have been in varying states of blooming glory. Shades of pink and white lighting up the yard, a little bit of happiness to see when we peer out one of the windows in the morning or evening. Speaking of peering out the windows, we’ve had a great white egret roost across the pond these last several months and it has been a lot of fun to see them all flying in around sunset every evening. Every morning when we wake up, they are still there, at least for a little bit. Then they decide it’s light enough to take flight and hunt for the day.
Most of the Rhododendron canescens are blooming. Now, just to wait for the yellow-orange Rhododendron austrinum to bloom. They always seem to be the later of the two to bloom.
The strawberries are now in their second year of growing in the vegetable garden and are getting quite established. There was a whole host of fruit, ready to ripen, when last week had some epic rains. Like usual when there’s an epic rain, the yard flooded. The berries that were nearly ripe were sitting underwater for a day which was just enough time for the birds to find them before we could wade out and get them. Go figure!
In all, the garden is in a wonderful state at the moment to enjoy. I find myself seeing new weeds to pull every hour. It seems they sprout between the moments I walk through the garden chasing Forest in the morning to the moments I walk through the garden chasing Forest in the afternoon. There are still seeds to sow and hopefully with the time change I will be able to get a little of that done this week. I have another plan: to compile a comprehensive plant list of the yard. Both ‘native’ (what was here, exotic or otherwise) and what is in the garden. I’m probably going to exclude the vegetable garden due to is transient nature. We’ve been trying to keep a wildlife/interesting thing journal of the yard for about two years or so. Sometimes we (Chris) are better about keeping up with it and other times, not so much. This plant list would be something that gives a little more perspective to our little 1.2 acres.
I’m just trying to bottle it all up and savor before we’re already on to summer.
