In a word

What word comes to mind when you think of spring?  For those of us that spend our free time in the yard, tending a garden, or wandering the aisles of the nursery, I'm sure that there are hundreds of words that could spring to mind depending upon your mood.  Whether it's the name of an iconic flower like the tulip, or perhaps it's the name of the first bird that shows up, or maybe what you think of is having more light, more warmth, or more energy.

When I think of spring I think of those things too.  But I think we all think of it on another level.  We not only think of what spring looks and feels like.  We think about what it means.  And what it means to me is faith, hope, and love.

Those of you who are Christians may be immediately familiar with that trinity of words as they are found in the Apostle Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.  He wrote, "And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love.  And the greatest of these is love."

Granted, I'm taking these completely out of context when I apply them to my view of Spring.  But the words remain apt.

I think of faith when I see the trees bursting forth into bloom and into leaf.  We had faith that the winter would not ruin us, that the bleak times would end eventually, that sustenance would be provided again.

How can you not feel hope when you see a bud about to burst forth?  Or when you see new foliage on the rose bush that has been little more than a barbed set of sticks for month?  Our faith was tested and found to be true and now we reap the reward of hope.  Hope for what is coming soon.

And then there is love.  The greatest of all.  The all-encompassing love.  We love our flowers.  We love the colors.  We love new life. We love our alone time.  We love our dogs, our parents, our spouses, our children, our friends, and our own selves.

May love fill your garden this spring and may it fill your life in the rest of your seasons.

Spring: In Seven Pictures

Sacramento's spring has begun.  There are still plenty of leafless trees and our record breaking dry winter (part of California's worst drought in 500 years) has left many homes, mine included, with dry, brown lawns.  But it's not all gross to look at.  Here's a peak at what has been blooming in my yard the last few days.

A plum tree of an unknown variety.  But I think it might be a Blue Damson or a "French Improved"
No matter the type, the blooms this year were the first to proclaim the end of winter. 

One morning last week I woke up and saw a Camellia bloom.  A few hours later there were a half dozen opening up.

The Japanese maple cultivar "Katsura" is almost always the first to leaf out in the spring.
It starts out yellow with tinges of red and then turns lime green for a while before darkening a few shades in summer.

This hydrangea managed to hold onto a few leaves from last season and is now putting on new growth.

This is one of my favorite Japanese maples.  The cultivar name is Murasaki Kiyohme.
It's a smaller JM and suitable for growing in a container in a shady spot.
All JMs prefer afternoon shade in hot climates but this one is especially sensitive to hot sun
and the leaves will shrivel up in the wrong spot.
If you look closely, you can see the buds are just beginning to swell.

The birds have returned and their voracious appetites made quick work of what I put out for them.

This pictures sums up Sacramento's Spring pretty well.  There are plenty of weeds to attend to but since they are the greenest part of the lawn I might just decide to let them take over this year.  Who needs a lawn anyway?

Stopping In My Tracks

On Saturday mornings my daughter has a gymnastics class that has become part of our weekly ritual.  We go and sit in the bleachers with our coffee while she learns to somersault, walk backwards on a beam, and perfect the art of making her parents freak out every time she slips.  This is good practice for all of us, I’m sure.  Each week she gets a little more comfortable and a little more coordinated than she was before.  She is growing incrementally and the change is so slight it is hard for someone to see it.  But once in a while she will say or do something that (both literally and metaphorically) stops me in my tracks and I will see her in a new way.  The child I once saw as merely a reflection of her parents has somehow trasformred into a thinking, opinionated, humorous little girl. These changes and these moments are worth remembering.  That’s an easy thing to write and probably an easier thing to just read over.  But these moments in our lives really are worth remembering.     

I normally drive by myself to gymnastics so that I can go home afterwards and start my yard work while the girls do the things that girls like to do when they don’t like to garden.  This past Saturday, as I drove back to our house, I was struck by how swiftly the signs of spring had come to Sacramento.  Many of our trees are in flower, daffodils are nearly finished blooming, and the sun is warm.  I had noticed these changes a little and even snapped a few photos of trees in bloom last month.  But then, just like with my daughter, I saw something that stopped me in my tracks . . . this time my car's tracks.  I actually said, “Wow” out loud when I saw this:   

This is on the corner of a very busy street in town and the entire front yard is walled in by the white-washed stucco wall.  I have driven by this house a thousand times and I have never noticed it before.  I felt lucky to have noticed it that day and I thought it would be worth remembering so I pulled over and took a few pictures with my phone. 

Although the picture above was worth posting on its own merit, I was inspired to put fingers to keyboard this morning because a third thing happened to me that stopped me in my tracks.  Clearly, I am in a time and place in my life where I am feeling compelled to stop and take note of what is going on.  This third event happened to be an e-mail I received.  I have infrequently written about the Library of Congress' weekly e-mail column called American Life in Poetry.  This week's poem has a gardening theme so I think it is appropriate to be shared here and I hope that it finds you in a place where you can stop and consider why we garden and what that says about your life as it did for me this morning: 

Cement Backyard

My father had our yard cemented over.
He couldn’t tell a flower from a weed.
The neighbors let their backyards run to clover
and some grew dappled gardens from a seed,

but he preferred cement to rampant green.
Lushness reeked of anarchy’s profusion.
Better to tamp the wildness down, unseen,
than tolerate its careless brash intrusion.

The grass interred, he felt well satisfied:
his first house, and he took an owner’s pride,
surveying the uniform, cemented yard.
Just so, he labored to cement his heart.

-Lynne Sharon Schwartz

Surprised By Spring Part 2

Have you ever learned a new word and then immediately noticed that the very word you didn’t know a week ago is being used all the time now?  Clearly, the word was being used by others before it was learned by us and it just took us stopping to notice the word once before we really noticed it at all.  That's how this spring feels to me.  Four days ago I didn't think spring was anywhere close and then I turned a corner and came face-to-face with a tree draped in pink blooms.  And now I'm seeing signs of spring everywhere. 

In my own front yard, the daffodils have emerged.

And the hydrangeas, still adorned with last year's dried blooms, are pushing out leaves.  It's days like today when I am thankful to live where I live.



Spring has come and I am going to enjoy this penultimate month in my house before we move.

Surprised by Spring

Sometimes you can sense it coming.  Sometimes you notice when the daffodil stalks break through the ground.  Sometimes you see buds swelling on a tree that has been dormant so long you can't quite remember what it looked like with leaves.  Sometimes you just notice the warmth of the sun on your face and you remember what heat feels like.

But sometimes, the coming of spring surprises you.  Sometimes you don't notice spring bulbs or swelling buds.  And sometimes, on a cloudy day in February, it is hard to remember the warmth of the sun.  But then you turn a corner and see something like this:

And you know that whether you noticed it or not, spring is coming. 

In Escrow

I know better than to say anything is official when it comes to selling a house but we’re getting very close.  We received an offer we liked and the potential buyer was okay with our counter offer so we’re plowing forward with the sale.  Officially we are in escrow.  Of course, several things could still happen that would put us all back at square one.  One of those things is the pest inspection scheduled for this weekend.  I am grateful that dandelions and palm seedlings don’t qualify as pests in this case.  Another hurdle is the appraisal.  If the house doesn’t appraise for the amount we accepted the buyer would not be able to secure the full funding. 

Columbines from last March

As part of the negotiations the buyers asked that we leave our wall mounts for our TVs.  At first I thought that was a strange request but it makes sense.  If we were to take those with us there would be gaping holes in the walls that would need to be patched and repainted.  And really, taking a TV mount would be tantamount (see what I did there?) to taking your curtain rods.  Curiosity drove me to Google which revealed that this request is actually pretty common.  In fact, I got off pretty easy.  In some cases, if your flat-screen TV is attached to the wall mount and requires a tool to remove it, the buyer may have the right to your TV too.

Our weeping cherry was in bloom at the end of March in 2012.  I hope it is again this year.

On our end of the negotiations we asked for an extra month to rent back our house.  This will serve a couple purposes: it will give us a little breathing room and allow us more time to find a house we like that isn’t in foreclosure or isn’t an active short sale (because those can take 6 months give or take).  It will also give me a chance to enjoy one more spring in my garden.  We estimate that we will be fully moved out before April 1^st.  Spring in Sacramento generally arrives in early March.  I am thankful for this because right now the garden looks pretty bleak and I’d prefer to leave it on a good note.

An Iris on April 1st

It also gives me some time to figure out how I’m going to move all my potted plants.