Now We Know

Sanguinaria canadensis

The weather this winter has been so spring-like that our plants didn’t know when to bloom and we hardly knew how to dress.  We had many days in the 60s and nights above freezing. On Thursday evening last week, the 20th of February, large, fluffy snowflakes fell for several hours leaving a carpet of snow and trees and shrubs clothed in white. The temperature dropped to its lowest level this year and we had proof that winter is here.  Gardeners aren’t comfortable in seasons like this. We watched early narcissus join snowdrops and hellebores and bloom in late January, but worried when Prunus mumes, Magnolias denudata and M. x loebneri opened fully.  More magnolias bloomed and we knew their flowers were doomed.  As expected, those blooms went from white to brown on Thursday just as the rest of the garden was clothed in white.  The garden survived. We survived. We spent the day after the snowfall gently removing the snow from our boxwoods and by Saturday afternoon the snow had begun to melt enough to reveal the garden. We went slowly from place to place and found irises, cyclamen, crocuses, and snowdrops just as we left them. Even most daffodils, which had bent to the ground with the snow, recovered and stood upright. We found a few trilliums in bloom and others just breaking through the soil; even bloodroot, Sanguinaria canadensis, had produced a few flowers. The primulas are blooming and  Spring really is here again although just a little early. We came out of the woods and began to clear off and revise the sunny gardens.