In Search of Signs of Spring
Pacing my yard looking for gnarled alien fingers
Walking through our yard that first spring after we moved in, every plant was a stranger. What’s that tiny rosette of leaves poking up? Where did that cluster of white flowers come from? Is that a tulip poking out of the leaf litter? I had no idea what the gardeners that came before had planted here. I also didn’t know what seeds the winds had blown in or what the neighborhood squirrels had buried. Everything was new.
Walking around our yard this March, most things are familiar. Those things that look like gnarled alien fingers? Those are common blue violets (Viola sororia).
This rosette of leaves is hairy bittercress (Cardamine hirsuta), one of the first weeds to emerge in our yard. Soon, this plant will grow a stem topped with tiny white blooms.
I do my best to weed these out in the next few weeks before they explosively launch their seeds in every direction. Maybe this year after I weed them, I’ll finally make a pesto out of the leaves.
This mess of stems is Canadian wild ginger (Asarum canadense). In no time, it’ll be sending out leaves and small brown flowers that bloom right along the ground.
This shallow depression (pointed out to me by my local garden gurus, John Totten and Linda Kramer) looks to be some sort of rabbit nest. I had noticed rabbits hanging out in this corner of the garden but until we cut back all the grasses I hadn’t been able to see this grass-lined nook in the ground.
This cluster of crinkled leaves is lemon balm. A neighbor must have had a patch of it in their garden a decade ago – or a century ago – and now it reliably springs up in every corner of our yard. I keep it in check (sort of) though I also like making tea with its leaves.
Of course, gardening is also completely unpredictable. I planted three Halberd Leaved Rose Mallow, a native hibiscus with big pinkish blooms, near the edge of the pond. What do they look like when they first emerge in the spring? And where exactly did I plant them? Which edge of the pond? And what about all that coreopsis – both lanceleaf and rose – that I planted last year? I’m keeping a close eye and I hope to see some signs of life soon.
In one corner of our yard, one rogue red tulip blooms each spring. I know most tulips don’t predictably return every year but this one’s shown up for five years in a row. And there are a bunch of other tulips coming up this year. After years of admiring the parrot tulips in the Breck’s catalog, I finally ordered a few dozen. I can barely wait to see one of the black parrot tulips in real life – they look unreal in the catalog.
There’s something so comforting about standing behind our house, scanning the ground and seeing these familiar sights. The daffodil blooms. Dandelion leaves appear. A bee visits a snowdrop. This is what spring looks like in our garden in Squirrel Hill.
What does spring look like in your garden? I’d love to hear about it.
And one more thing: Brooke and I built an art installation in a series of windows in downtown Pittsburgh! We’ve been researching and working on it for nearly a year and I think we were so busy building it that we forgot to tell anyone we were doing it. We finally finished it last week and we’d love for you to see it! If you’re in the area, you can find it on Wood Street between 6th and Oliver. If you’re not in Pittsburgh, then you can watch this video:
I hope you'll post photos of the black parrot tulips when they bloom!
Left northern Vermont for 10 days with a foot of snow on the ground. Came back to masses of snow drops. Small buds coming on the early daffs. Would have been crocus flowers except the chipmunks eat them first thing when they emerge from their holes in the rocks. AND bluebirds AND phoebes AND vultures overhead. All this in 10 days. We cleaned out the bird houses. 🥷 It was a brisk sunny breezy day.