With all the soaking and flooding rains we have received over the last month
(with exception of 5 days out of February, we had inches and inches in
Eastern Tennessee) and the bitter colds, the clay soils around here are
literally bursting with life. Now add in some warm days of mild
temperatures, averaging around mid 40s to upper 50's feeling absolutely
comfortable, blend with some thick, skin soaking fogs and fleeting sunshine,
and what we got this week was a memory of spring.

Regardless that I live in Eastern Tennessee, what I consider as my signs of
spring are many fold. We've all been discussing it here on the newsgroups
amongst the talks of wars and rumors of wars, returning of robins (or other
seasonal birds common to your particular location) and more female
cardinals, and even spotting blue cranes at one of the cow ponds the other
day as I took a side road to work.

My spring indications are many. Reading my scrawly writing in my ten year
journal which has shown signs of neglect these last two years (I vowed to do
better by investing in a new journal for when the first one is thru, which
will be next year, I mean, are gardeners optomistic or what? g) I saw that
my worries that the first lilting sounds of the peepers wasn't as early and
too soon as I thought. They struck up a chorus that lifted my heart. Zhan
was even able to hear their songs of lust as they started tuning up for the
females while she was here. But had she waited just a few more days to have
come up for her first visit, she would have been deafened by their throngs
of lusty song. It gave me goose bumps today as I stood in the driveway and
bright sunshine listening. Hell, how could I have NOT heard their chants and
songs. They were drunk with it, all warmed up, singing love songs and "come
hithers baby, cos I gonna make such be-o-u-t-iful tadpoles with
youse........."

My youngest son arrived down the driveway just as I was about to leave on
errands, and I had to cease where I was going and slow down for him and have
a mama and son moment. I do these, as I hope one day they can sit and
reflect back to the days when they did this when they were younger and it
will bring tearful smiles and memories back to them as my memories did to me
with my beloved family who shared things with me, and even now the more
recent past shared moments are precious to me.

He was dressed in his knock 'em dead dress clothes. He'd gone to court and
things were going very well, and he was in the county (he lives in another
county, on the other side of Knoxville) he decided to honor me by a visit.
Mama has become something special to him. It swells my heart with love and
respect and appreciation. A hug enveloped me in his cologne, and I gave him
a deep squeeze, and he said he'd noticed things were starting to pop up in
the gardens.

The fairies are deffinately awake and starting to nudge things out of the
raised beds. Where Zhan saw green noses sticking out of the ground in bare
resemblance to particular perennials, i.e. daylilies, irises, mounds of
leaves (with exception to the silly oriental poppies that insist on being
lush, GREEN, and a tuft of ferny leaves all tightly bound in the center
waiting for the signals to really fill out and start making knobs of orange
for me in late April or early May.) there are now identifiable shoots of so
much it fills the eyes with greens.

Damon and I walked back down the dog run sidewalk on the front of the house,
and I started pointing out the obvious. He pointed at the yellow daffs, and
saw the grape purple crocus standing alone near the little piece of cedar
root stump I sat in the bed for character. He was almost appalled at the
new sentients..........Zhan brought me gifts when she came up. A whole
frelling flock o' flamingos...............but not yer ordinary flamingos.
Oh no, she brought me great behemoth, steroid grown, oversized bright pink,
necks curved down to the ground flamingos. And these aren't a foot or so
off the ground. No. These are about four to five foot tall once you put them
on the dowels and shove them into the soft soil flamingos. I am tempted to
cluster them together in a flock, but for now, one is in the eastern end,
one in the middle of the eastern bed towards the front near the sidewalk,
and the other one stands alone on the western side in the bed guarding the
little riot of crocuses that are all up in assorted colors and types.

The first two she originally sent are pigmies in comparrison. I love
them................We'll talk about the electric Christmas light and motion
flamingo she found at another time........GBSEG (anyone want to see a
picture of it, holler my way)lol.

Once he got over the shock of the pink in the coastal birds, I started
pointing out clumps of green shrouded buds and kept walking towards the
western bed with the riot of crocuses in it. Along the way, he saw the patch
of fallen sky, the tiny deep blue iris reticulata's at the edge of the far
western end of the front beds. Dead stems of the single petaled kerria
japonica begged me to trim her up, but I need to wait a bit more to ensure
the biting colds are past before I trim the brown ends off. Too soon, and
the cold will nip the tender green and kill off more stems.

As he saw all the crocuses I spoke of, I realized the prize show had been
totally passed by, and told him that I had to show him something more
beautiful. He humored me as I told him about his Pa's experience.

"Before he left Tuesday, and when Zennie was still here, I had come inside
from the chill of outside Monday, and told him I really wanted to show him
something. He's used to me doing this, and got up from his recliner, and
followed me outside. By now, he's used to this dragging about and followed
me around the front portion of the Not So Secret Gardens on the east end of
the house here." I led son thru the narrow opening between the Harlequin
Glory Bower and teeny leafing St. John's Wort bush that perches at the
corner edge of the retaining wall, and past the just leafing Salix over to
the cedar tree trunk that is the edge of the flower bed along the small deck
that rises above four foot up.

There against the back edge where the ground keeps going up underneath the
"deck" is a magnificent clump of Hellebore's. These are the white ones with
the burgandy speckled throats. Tucked against the concrete that they had
poured for a base for the wooden partial deck, with all the rotted leaves
and rich worm soils, and in their own micro climate of indirect eastern sun
(the black cherry even naked of leaves blocks total contact with the eastern
morning sun) and strong indirect southern sun, the clump is most impressive.
Even before you lift a blossom and look into her cupped face, you can see
their beauty. There they were, over 25 blossoms, rising gracefully like
ladies in skirts with layers of slips under them lifting them. I'd not know
what to do if I had doubles of these girls.

I knelt on the trunk, and carefully lifted up one of the many open bells and
showed her face to him. "Isn't she wonderous? Check this one out over
here, son.." and I lifted up the next face in the clump three foot over
towards the northen portion of the bed. "These are the same, but different
colored, see how the shoulders are soft blush? And the centers, (as I
lifted up a much larger bell) are soft green. But check THIS one
out......Pa didn't even see these buds, but when he looked at the first
ones, he remarked to me " "Hon, are these things Hellebores? Only YOU would
have me know a name of these things.....geeze yer amazing sometimes"" and I
carefully lifted up a still not completely opened up HUGE pure white drop,
and showed him that the face would be a soft creamy lime green when it did
mature in a few days.

Then I stood up and pointed across the driveway to the bed that edged the
concrete literally and to the very obvious clump of darker plum buds on the
other hellebore plants, and we walked over to that bed and he saw that there
were all sorts of shoots up in the dark top soil I had built up around the
black cherry's roots.

I pointed to the whiskey barrel I'd filled with soil, to the
red-purple-green tufts of leaves coming up and told him "those are Virginia
bluebells, way way too soon" and I could see he remembered when this barrel
was the back seat of his dad's Harley Davidson trike that he and his pa had
wrenched on when he was a little guy. I have a picture of him "driving" it
with his dad sitting in the whiskey barrel back seat over the two rear
wheels and it's a picture that invokes smiles and memories. Now I've still
got the barrel, the bike has long been gone from our home, but hopefully is
being ridden by the man who bought it, and I still have a part of the memory
and planted with returning spring flowers. Tucked here and there are heart
shaped leaves of clyclamen that didn't bloom for me or I missed them, but
they assure me in these little hearts that they're still in there, I'll look
for them later near fall again.

The whole time, you were almost drowned out by the chorus of peepers in the
surrounding lands and hills. The ridge literally vibrated with the sound it
was so loud.

The smells in the sunlight was warmed and moist soil. Rich, almost
overwhelming, but sweet.

When son and I left and I returned later alone with Rose, I had with me a
salve for my happiness. A sign to myself that I had something more than just
another spring's teasing to comfort me.

Earlier I had finally gotten some much needed good news mingled in with bad
news, stressed events and more good things. It was almost balanced out. It
was a roller coaster wild ride.

I had gone to pick up Squires small pittance for his short time at work last
week since he was in Arizona, and I had gone to pick up my first paycheck at
Lowes. It was a surprise. I was expecting less. Once I got over the joy of
seeing that first paycheck, I went out to the car, pulled around to the
nursery, and hooked Rose up to her leash and let her meet two of the people
I work with. Rose was estatic. She's never been allowed to do this before.
She was a perfect lady. No barking, and when I asked her to please sit, she
did, immediately, thumping her tail in total abandon and pure dawg joy.
This dawg was grinning in the unmistakable smile that only happy dawgs
display. Mama was letting her do something wonderful and there were all
sorts of people with smiles and smells and she was almost floating she was
so happy.

She met the vendor who cares for the plants on the racks from the nurseries
for Lowes, and her name happens to be Rose too. They bonded instantly. And
she met one of the regular ladies who has known me now for 6 years, and
welcomed her as if she's known Susan her whole life. As I walked her back to
the car, I had made my decision. I called Squire on the cell phone and made
sure I was in the clear with him. I wanted to celebrate the good news that
the IRS had accepted our offer in compromise today and in a few weeks or so,
our life hopefully will get back to normal, such as it is. Or at least
partially. What IS normal, right? GBSEG

I wanted to get a tree. Now bear in mind, I have decided that I will not
buy any trees until the woods below the house at the end of the slope is
cleaned up, eliminated of 98% of the poison ivy, all of the privet, all but
one or two of the largest cedar trees and even those limbed up, all but the
biggest pin oaks removed and cut down, and any fallen trunks repositioned so
that I can begin planting understory blooming trees under the jack pines.
And blooming bushes under and against them, and neat things around the neat
rocks and boulders.

But I've been here now nearly 8 years, and despite that there is an 8 year
old Cornelian cherry (twig leaf dogwood) out front, and a Harlequin Glory
bower just a few feet from it, and a fig in the western yard, I haven't
bought any trees. And I have a mental list of what I want down in my woods.
I want Silver bells, redbuds, white, pink, red and Kousa dogwoods. I want
sourwoods, a red buckeye, some deciduous magnolia's, one southern Magnolia
at the eastern end of these woods to grow into an unpruned tree that will
hopefully grow to stretch it's limbs to the ground and make secret rooms for
children and other gardeners to walk under and sit. I want to plant some
tall spruces here and there, and with luck, some of Miz Mary's pink hairy
locust trees, or Acacia's.

In the corner somewhere, I want a couple of Asian apple pear trees, some
good solid flame maples to anchor the property corners, and any small
understory blooming tree I happen to come across that will thrive in my
woods without me. As well as one Harry Lauder's walking stick, or twisted
filbert perched over the boulder on the east edge of the woods.

Squire gave me the go ahead. I circled back to Lowes, and with a grin on my
face, and Rose standing guard in the front seat of the car (the truck was
parked somewhere else inaccessable, this was going to call upon my abilities
to haul large things in a car up again like old times) I sailed past Susan
at the check out counter at the nursery gate, and went back to the trees.
And the pink dogwoods, and started counting buds on them. Two were a toss
up, but after looking at the shape of them, I decided on the one with 39
buds on it, to ensure it bloomed (the red dogwood hadn't one bud on the ends
of the stems, and I already have a sport dogwood that Mary Emma had me dig
up 8 years ago and it's still not bloomed or showed me what color it will be
when it does) and picked it up by it's trunk and carried it to be purchased.

Susan was amused. I got my discount, and took the tree to the car parked by
the front entrance on the end away from the people by the railroad ties, and
thought about how I was going to carry a five foot seven inch tall pink
dogwood tree in a 15 gallon pot home without losing one bud an not put it in
the truck. I rolled down the passenger window, asked Rose to get into the
back seat, which she did, and slipped it thru, and onto the front seat, and
it rode home in the wind like a hound going for a ride who loves the wind in
it's face. Rose likes to taste the wind, but after awhile, she curls up and
enjoys the ride. She had to take the back seat to the tree getting her spot
but she didn't seem to mind considering she's been home alone, all she
needed was to just be with me and riding.

At home, I have a huge concrete pot that son gifted his mama with two years
ago that weighs a ton (it feels like it weighs a ton) sitting on the bricks
beside the driveway in front of the east end bed. I had planted two tiny
seedlings of red maples in it, but the Japanese beetles had eaten the leaves
off the stems and when the leaves resprouted, they returned to eat them off
again, and I thought then that I should have given up trying to grow these
trees. The pot was perfect.

As slowly as dogwoods grow, all I had to do was remove the young red maple
trees, and put them in a nursery pot for now until I find a spot to let them
grow and thrive or be eaten to bones. I would have to use my dad's hand
dolly to move the pot, but once I removed the chickweed that covered the top
of the rootball, and planted the tree, I loaded the whole thing up onto the
old dolly and slowly and carefully rolled it over underneath the black
cherry tree. Dogwoods are understory trees, and I didn't want to leave it
exposed to strong southern and western sunlight. Tucked against the layered
bricks of the raised bed around the black cherry, the stark whiteness of the
cement pot is a bit obvious, but given some buttermilk and moss I paint on
the outsides of the pot later, it will look just fine until I can
permanently plant it into the woods when it gets all cleared out to my
satisfaction.

Until then, I have my first dogwood. I can't wait. Maybe I should plant
some spring bulbs in the soil around the dogwood and when the day comes to
permanently slip it into the ridge, it will have a little family of spring
bulbs and such to keep it company and establish into it's own colony.
Bloodroot, trilliums, maybe some snowdrops and muscari. Or glory of the
snow. Something that will pop up and bloom with the pink blossoms floating
above in the blue sky.

The weigh of the pot and soil and tree and pulling it to the tree and then
positioning it was enough to do me in. I figure the wet pot, soil, tree and
such was a good 200 pounds or more. As I stood there, smelling the damp
earth, and looked at the black soil on my hands, I knew, despite that I feel
in my heart that Mom's Nature isn't thru with her teasings of colds and
possibly a snow or frost, that my personal memory of spring is relived.
This one will be my 50th spring. If you listen carefully amidst the raucous
songs of the bluejays, crows, ravens, the twitters of the finches,
chickadees, the melodious songs of the robins, cardinals, bluebirds,
mockingbirds, the tapping and odd sounds of the woodpeckers, the higher
sounds of the red hawks, the owl down in my neighbors fallow acres eastward,
thru the blasting of the peepers, you can hear the sighs of the trees as
they start to waken and stretch their limbs, reaching into the moist, soft
water logged soils and start pumping their sap upwards, in anticipation of
leaves and birds nests, the tickles of squirrels feet and summer sun.

Before I went inside to wash my hands (I'd rinsed them in rain water in
containers siting outside) I started checking under brown stems I leave all
winter, and everywhere I looked, little clusters of leaves were sitting
patiently waiting for spring to arrive so they could push past the old dead
growth and start again.

Knuckles of sedums have started flattening out, but first cold snap, they
will draw in again, underneath pink/tan stems that easily snap off in your
fingers. The Frakartii asters can be snapped halfway now and not disturb
the roots. (I still don't know how they return every year by seed or root,
is still a mystery to me). Everywhere the soil is punctuated by shoots of
bulbs, and now the pots of daylilies I divided for Mary Emma and myself are
showing signs of life where there were once seemingly empty pots of soil.
Even ferns are fiddling upwards at the ends of their dead toes in some
places. and that damn vinca needs to be pulled out once and for
all..................

Thanks for allowing me to ramble on, there is more, but I am starting to go
crosseyed myself, and I will carry onwards with this thought tomorrow.

The pink dogwood is tucked into the huge pot underneath the black cherry
tree, and if I'm lucky, they will bloom the same time or nearly the same,
and the shade of the boughs of the cherry tree will provide just enough
dappled shade for the dogwood later on to nurture it. And I can see it from
my nook window if I peek around the side G Tomorrow I sow poppy seeds
along the fence row!

madgardener up on the ridge, back in a bursting fairy holler, overlooking
English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee zone 6b, Sunset zone 36

"madgard" wrote in message
. ..

This one will be my 50th spring. If you listen carefully amidst the
raucous
songs of the bluejays, crows, ravens, the twitters of the finches,
chickadees, the melodious songs of the robins, cardinals, bluebirds,
mockingbirds, the tapping and odd sounds of the woodpeckers, the higher
sounds of the red hawks, the owl down in my neighbors fallow acres
eastward,
thru the blasting of the peepers, you can hear the sighs of the trees as
they start to waken and stretch their limbs, reaching into the moist, soft
water logged soils and start pumping their sap upwards, in anticipation of
leaves and birds nests, the tickles of squirrels feet and summer sun.



madgardener up on the ridge, back in a bursting fairy holler, overlooking
English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee zone 6b, Sunset zone 36


Your gardens couldn't be more beautiful than your joyful words about them!
Thank you! Do you have a website or any pictures?

Bobbie
Washington state

no website, but I take pictures all the time with my digital. if you want me
to send a few JPEG's on occaison, I will be most happy to put faces on my
flowers. e-mail me and let me know (I took pictures of the crocuses and of
the incredible Hellebore's G thanks for the kind words, Roberta.
madgardener
"Roberta L. Mueller" wrote in message
...

"madgard" wrote in message
. ..

This one will be my 50th spring. If you listen carefully amidst the
raucous
songs of the bluejays, crows, ravens, the twitters of the finches,
chickadees, the melodious songs of the robins, cardinals, bluebirds,
mockingbirds, the tapping and odd sounds of the woodpeckers, the higher
sounds of the red hawks, the owl down in my neighbors fallow acres
eastward,
thru the blasting of the peepers, you can hear the sighs of the trees as
they start to waken and stretch their limbs, reaching into the moist,
soft
water logged soils and start pumping their sap upwards, in anticipation
of
leaves and birds nests, the tickles of squirrels feet and summer sun.



madgardener up on the ridge, back in a bursting fairy holler,
overlooking
English Mountain in Eastern Tennessee zone 6b, Sunset zone 36


Your gardens couldn't be more beautiful than your joyful words about them!
Thank you! Do you have a website or any pictures?

Bobbie
Washington state