Disappearing snow awakens familiar longing for busier, brighter days

As the last patches of hard, dry snow faded earlier this week, the lack of winter cover revealed a landscape sorely in need of tending. The late-winter scene harkens with perennial beds not quite fully cleared of debris, stonewalls or fences aching for repair, paths that yearn for the wheelbarrow to deposit a rich protective layer atop their weather-worn surface.

Shakespeare wrote of this time of year: “When daffodils begin to peer/when hey! The doxy over the dale/Why then comes in the sweet o’ the year/For the red blood reigns in the winter’s pale.”

Shakespeare’s image of spring is of red blood restoring the pale shades of our winter’s complexion. Presumably, the work of spring gets the blood flowing through our veins again. After a long winter’s rest away from outdoor work, most would agree that our skin is yearning for a heartier hue. The landscape, too, begs for restoration of its summer’s face.

These seemingly lifeless weeks before spring springs in earnest can be difficult to tolerate. “I’m about ready for spring,” our neighbors repeat to each other. “I’ve had just about all I can take.”

But these weeks, they can spark the vitality in us too, causing us to feel that we might have the edge over nature just for a few fleeting days. While the hardiest perennials slowly test the spring elements by poking tender green leaves through the cold soil, we skip past with a cartload of raked leaves or a wheelbarrow full of stones cleared from a new garden spot.

“I’m outpacing you!” part of us wants to scream to Mother Nature. “Come on, come on! Warm faster!” another part screams back.

When the work in the yard is nicely in order, there’s always the wood’s edge to turn to. In among the understory of trees, branches broken from the weight of snow and ice wait to be lifted and dragged to a pile. Short pieces of firewood will be harvested from the larger branches, twigs will be tossed into a brush pile for a foggy-day burning.

Why, with all this work to be done, can some of us step out the door each morning, sense the fragrance of thawing sod in the air, hear the running water trickle across the land and eagerly await the hours we’ll devote to growing? The methodical, therapeutic, creative or repetitious nature of the work is the primary draw, most would say.

The simple truth is that our outdoor space is a reflection of ourselves: designed with love, tended with care, harvested with joy. From the smallest bouquet to the grandest of vegetable gardens, our gardens at once reflect and cultivate a common primal creative connection that runs through us all.

I look at my garden, even in this dreary period of March, and I feel that surge of joy, that same surge a child feels on a birthday morning. I watch with an overwhelming sense of anticipation that there are great gifts waiting beneath the soil. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting to be opened.

Diana George Chapin is the NEWS garden columnist. Send horticulture questions to Gardening Questions, RR1, Box 2120, Montville 04941, or e-mail them to dianagc@midcoast.com. Selected questions will be answered in future columns. Include name, address and telephone number.