My gardens are calling me

BY CAROL HEGEL LANG
LAKE MILLS GRAPHIC
Even though the calendar has officially announced that spring has arrived, we saw just what Mother Nature can do with the snow we had the other day, and now with more in the forecast for this week. The gardens are calling me, but there isn’t much I can do in them, until the soil dries up. Any branches that have fallen, get picked up and put in the container that will go to the landfill, unless they are smaller ones that I can use in the garden as little markers along the rows of annuals that I will plant. The soil is too wet to rake yet on the lawn and the gardens are covered in leaf mulch.
As I walk around checking the gardens, I see the rosebushes that I planted last spring seem to have made it through the winter, as a small patch of green on the lower stems is visible. Buds have formed on the hydrangeas and I still have some that need the old flower heads cut off, and I need to get at them as soon as I can walk on the soil without compacting it.
All the garden ornaments that were left out over the winter are visible now and the birdbaths need to be turned right side up, when we quit having temperatures below freezing, so that the water that collects in them doesn’t freeze. My tulips are up several inches and I have been keeping an eagle eye on them, watching to see if the rabbits are checking them out for a tasty treat. Last season, they all bloomed for me and just as soon as I saw the rabbits showing interest in them, up went the little fence and the pinwheel was set in the middle of the patch, to ward them off.
More and more birds are showing up at the feeders now and in another month the orioles and grosbeaks should make their appearance. I wait all year for the arrival of the spring migrating birds and what a disappointment last year was, with only a couple of orioles eating up the grape jelly. On the good side, I have plenty of jars of grape jelly still sitting in the pantry that I can use this year. The robins love the jelly too, so I have had a platform feeder out for them for a couple of weeks now.
Recently, I received five corms of meadow blazing star, that the monarch butterflies really flock to. I will need to get them planted in small containers, to give them a start before they go into the gardens. The more native plants that I can add to the gardens, the more wildlife it will attract. Swamp milkweed will be added this year to the butterfly weed and common milkweed that is already growing in my gardens to attract the monarch butterflies, as these are all host plants for the caterpillars and the only food they will eat.
Over the past few weeks, I have started to save milk and juice jugs, that will hold water from the containers in which I gather water off the roof to water the flower containers. My water wagon will hold 15 gallon jugs and my 32-gallon container, so that I don’t have to make so many trips back and forth to get water. Boy, I don’t know what I would do without this water wagon. It has been a lifesaver since the year that I broke my wrist. Not only do I haul water, but also mulch, soil and bricks, to areas of the gardens where I am working. It is my most valued gardening tool.
Although the gardens are calling me, I know that it is going to be another month or better before I am doing any gardening. It is just nice to sit outside on the benches listening to the birds singing or walking the gardens, to see what has sprouted above the soil. What made it through the winter and what succumbed to the cold and lack of snow? Each and every plant in the gardens is important to me and when I lose one, I mourn the loss of it as if it was a family member. What birds will arrive at the feeders and where will the wrens build their nests this year?
“Is the spring coming?” he said. “What is it like? It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine . . .” ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
Send comments and questions to: carolhegllang@gmail.com.