MARCH / APRIL 2006

This is really when it all begins.

March, not January, is the beginning of the year for gardeners. In about two weeks, I will bring out the seed packets, fill 2-1/2-inch Jiffy Pots with sterile seed-starting mix, and get this gardening year rolling. There will be Orange Oxheart and Sun Sugar tomatoes for sure, since they wowed me in last summer’s taste tests, and also the trusty Better Boy, which seems to out-produce everything else I’ve ever grown, plus some kind of plum tomato (Roma? Milano? San Marzano? I haven’t decided yet.)

Then I’m going to start some foxgloves and Canterbury bells since writing about biennials in this issue got me in the mood to see waves and waves of their towering stately blooms. (Rule of thumb: most seeds need to be started indoors 6 to 8 weeks before you put them in the ground in mid- to late May. However, if I had wanted to grow geraniums from seed, I would already be too late since they require a longer growing period before they come into bloom. You can start them in January.)

March is also the time for crocuses. By the end of the month, the ground under my mock oranges will be ablaze with yellow, purple and white, and I will think with Wordsworth, “Earth has not anything to show more fair.” (Although he was writing about an early morning view of London from Westminster Bridge rather than flowers.) Every year, there’s a day when the display is well-nigh perfect, and so I spend time sitting on my front steps just gazing in wonder, never mind that passing neighbors no doubt find me a shocking sloth (“What, has she nothing better to do at 10 o’clock on a weekday morning than loll about in the sun?”) Answer: no.

The truth is, perfection doesn’t last, so you’ve got to catch it when you can. We’re fond of saying that gardening teaches patience—those foxgloves and Canterbury bells won’t bloom until 2007, after all. But even more importantly, it teaches us to realize that sometimes, however fleetingly, there are things in this flawed and fractious world that really are perfect. Walking through a garden, you can see it—a monarch butterfly sucking nectar from a coneflower, a bee entering the blossom of a Penstemon digitalis for pollen, a flower backlit by the setting sun. There are also perfect scents—sniff any Oriental lily or ‘Festiva Maxima’ peony or a deeply perfumed rose (yes, they’re still out there).

And none of it lasts.

The petals turn brown around the edges and drift to the ground, the butterfly flits away, the sun sets. Gardening teaches us that as well.

So garden your heart out this year. Grow whatever strikes your fancy. Have fun. And when a shining 80-degree, puffy-cloud day comes along with just the slightest whiff of a breeze, your clematis is draped across your fence just so, or your salvias, marigolds and zinnias are putting out more color than any 4th of July fireworks display, pause for a moment and say, “It doesn’t get any better than this,” because you’re right: it doesn’t.