MARCH
/ APRIL 2003
It’s
a tossup which month I dislike more—November
or March. While November arrives carrying its
bad behavior like an unwelcome gift (dark gloomy
days, empty trees, steadily increasing cold),
March would appear to be all fun and gardening
games. The days are getting longer, a few bulbs
are poking up their noses to test the air, a robin
can almost always be seen hopping around my yard
on the first day of spring. And yet...
The thing about November is that it doesn’t
promise what it can’t deliver. We expect
it to be grim, so we can’t be disappointed
whatever it does. March, on the other hand, is
a tease. It plays Lucy to my Charlie Brown, pretending
that on this bright sunny day I really will be
able to dig a little in the garden, clean up leftover
debris, lift some mulch, all the while basking
in mellow “spring-like” temperatures.
But that wind off Lake Michigan is frigid, and
I find I must bundle up in a winter coat and gloves
if I’m going to cut down those stiff aster
stalks or reconnoiter for bloodroot. And if it’s
spring, why is the lawn still swathed in brown?
(Suddenly it’s clear why they call Ireland
the Emerald Isle.)
So it’s time to devise Plan B. For starters,
make sure to attend the Chicago Flower and Garden
Show March 8-16, and once there, buy a plant (or
two or three). Maybe even pick up an orchid. Know
nothing about them? So once did Tom and Donna
Krischan whose orchid-growing saga is recounted
this issue in The Beginner’s Garden (page
6).They started with one, purchased on a whim,
and today have 200 (the count when Tom wrote the
article).
Plan also to buy an Easter lily (or two or three).
Local lily expert Woodruff Imberman blends the
history of this fragrant beauty with an explanation
of just how modern greenhouse growers manage to
hit the blooming bull’s-eye when faced with
an ever-moving target date. Once the holiday is
past, you can keep your plant happy in the house
and, later, in the garden. (page 28)
Speaking of fragrance...our cover story this issue
examines an aspect of gardening that many lament
as having gone with the wind that blew away the
Old South. In our minds, the 19th century garden
was brimming with fragrant flowers that 20th century
plant breeding appears to have stolen from us.
Say the word “heirloom” and visions
of cuddly grandmas surrounded by olde tyme flowers
spring to mind.
But perhaps the reality is different from the
perception. Perhaps having a season-long fragrant
garden in our own time is mainly a matter of knowing
what to grow, and we have more choices than we
thought. (On pages 40-49 we give you 80.)
So perhaps we 21st century dwellers will be able
to have our high-tech cake and eat it too. Or
at least give it a long rapturous sniff.
