In the Southland, the tradition was to celebrate George Washington’s birthday on Feb. 22 by pruning rosebushes, cutting back the wood so that within weeks tiny green sprouts would begin to form. Then would come the thorns, then the rosebud itself. It all started each year on Washington’s birthday, not on some contrived Presidents Day when retail stores and car lots advertise holiday sales.

Later in the spring, no matter when Good Friday fell, that is when we’d plant the vegetable garden because by then all danger of a late frost was gone and the delicate seedlings could flourish without being nipped.

Where these practices originated is unclear to me; they were among so many other legacies passed from one generation of gardeners to another and we followed them with certainty.

Nowadays, I can’t find the rosebushes, so hidden are they under the snow and frozen piles of spruce and cedar boughs placed on top of them last fall for protection. But they are there, sleeping beside iris bulbs and lilies until warmer days stir their roots and nudge them out of their slumber.

When that will be is anyone’s guess, but if we defer to another February fable and recall Groundhog Day, we were told winter is far from over.

On Feb. 2, a groundhog named Phil from Punxsutawney, Pa., reportedly climbed out of his burrow into the sun, saw his shadow and declared six more weeks of winter. No surprise there, but Feb. 2 was marked by even more notations on an old weather calendar. “If on the

2nd of February the goose finds it wet, then the sheep will have grass on March 25th.”

“When drops hang on the fence on the 2nd of February, icicles will hang there on the 25th of March.”

“Double-faced February,” almanacs call this month when at least one week is predicted to be fine and fair – the February thaw as it is known Down East – yet others can be as brutal as December.

“When the cat in February lies in the sun, she will again creep behind the stove in March,” the weather proverbs say. And there is no reason to doubt that any more than the forecast: “When the north wind does not blow in February, it will surely come in March.”

This particular winter, the north wind has blown steadily, leaving the woods littered with blow-downs leaning against each other like giant pick-up-sticks. Strong gusts have churned up the bay and uprooted and toppled trees. Yet heavy north winds this month, says the German proverb, “forebode a fruitful year.”

According to February fables, there is plenty more winter to come. “The nights of the 20th and 28th are called in Sweden ‘steel nights’ on account of their cutting severity,” states an almanac published in 1883.

“February doth cut and shear, February fill dike. Be it black or be it white; but if it be white it’s the better to like.”

That all depends on what you mean by the word “like.” As in, I rather liked cutting back the roses on Feb. 22. Whether fact or fable, the date signified an end to winter.