STAGES

Spring is here when the snails arrive and just before the deer come back to prune our plants. We can enjoy the wonders of the new flowers and other growth, listen to birds calling to each other, and to the frogs croaking at night as we stomp on snails and spray aphids off the roses with insecticidal soap. (Gardeners are not necessarily kind hearted!)

We've taped off an area of our back porch because we have two birds building a nest under the spider plant in the corner. They tried this spot a couple of years ago, but I poured water on the plant not realizing they were there. They flew away in a fury. Now, they are back and I'm reminded not to sit in my favorite chair on the back porch for a few weeks.

A gardener is a natural observer. I look at each plant to see the difference in growth from one day to the next. I listen to the bees that swarm around the Japanese Maple and Liquidambar blossoms each year, I count and record the number of bees and varieties of other pollinators on the plants in the garden, and I watch the sun bake out the moisture from the ground. Spring is a good time to watch the stages of life. I sit on a stool in our backyard and draw the flowers as they change from buds to full flowers. As I sit this morning, raindrops land on my page and I hurry to finish the cally lilies before I get wet.

As a gardener, I notice we live in a micro-climate. The weather at our house is different from the weather in downtown Danville, which is 7 miles away. Our flowering fruit trees and spring flowers appear later than town because we are slightly elevated and close to Mt. Diablo. Now I think even our backyard has various micro-climates too. How else to explain the five plants in this planter box?

One is just hanging on to life, one has died, and the other three are in various stages of flourishing -- differences in the amount of sun, water pooling or other possibilities? Another good experiment to determine what went wrong. Gardening is a series of 'what went wrongs' followed by an occasional great success because a blooming plant is in the best possible place for growth. Consider these roses from our backyard.

What do you do to enjoy the best of Spring?