Spring was late in coming this year, and she wasn’t content at all to settle in for her usual welcomed visit. She would hide around the corner, peak in for a quick hello and then once again she seemed to withdraw, as though she were a child suffering from the lack of social skills. Winter lingered and summer has arrived unannounced, ahead of her calendar booking, with the temperatures soaring upscale now, in the high 80’s and low 90’s, in April. Bulbs this year bloomed well although they looked cold with 40 and 50 degree temperatures to content with. The daffodils were beautiful but short lived, and tulips were stunned in growth height due to warmth then cold, warmth then cold, confusing them if they should stay dormant or push to full growth from beneath the earth where they slept. Much rain this season already, something I will soon be longing for the garden when it so needs a deep penetration from Mother Nature, not the hose nozzle I will diligently use to meet its thirst.

This morning I walked the garden, alone, until the sun woke stretching her rays ever so softly in the distance until she was high enough to go over the rooftops behind me. I could feel the heat that would come as the humidity was already noticeably present. The lady’s mantel still held her dew drops on her leaves, a plant that I truly love the structure of. There isn’t much in bloom yet, but, patience in the garden is a virtue I have learned well. It takes along time for a garden to come into her full glory.

Coronation Gold yarrow has twenty three small buds forming and I can anticipate how beautiful she will be and how much pleasure she will bring when her bright gold hard flower heads spread flatly and open. The fennel is getting taller and the monarchs will have their fill of it. I make a mental note to plant more as fennel as is a must in my garden to be eaten, look raggedy afterward, but to have a garden that provides not only my pleasures but those of nature is important. Caterpillars will graze on the ferny foliage, stripping the stems to bareness and rather then have it upset me I will applaud that many new monarchs will spread wings and flutter across my garden and perhaps to another for someone else to enjoy. Delphinium buds are tiny but they are there, looking weak and I do silently hope for big stalks of bloom, but whatever it brings I will be satisfied with. We can never have everything we want or we would live always unsatisfied. To be excepting of what I have, what life brings me keeps disappointment where it belongs, far at a distance.

The front garden is becoming lush, needs thinning out more, but I will allow it to bloom and come fall transplant even more from there to other areas and share with other gardeners things I have an abundance of. My Queen Elizabeth rose has over fifty buds and six are in bloom. A rose is a rose, is a rose, and her thorns are her protection, much like the thorns of life I have experienced now become my protection from hurt by others. Verbascum, commonly called “Southern Ladies” has only two stalks so far and one is opening to reveal tiny taupe flowers gracing the stem from the bottom, opening slowly to the top. It is a plant that gets may stalks of different colors on each plant. How much I like verbascum in a garden. Day lilies are massive and their bud stalks are still low within the foliage, I peaked. The flowering plum tree is beginning to shoot its leaf growth, a deep maroon, and the sweet tiny light purple flowers it held for many weeks are about finished. Rosemary still in flower greets me as I walk back towards to go inside, but not before I catch glimpse of the blue eyed grass looking at me. I sometimes have to rip some of that from my garden but I have never been sorry I planted it. The little blue flowers with the black eye dots are one of the wildflower masterpieces.

Come spring time I become over zealous, wanting it all to come together quickly and my desire to plant, plant, plant rages out of control. There are times I just have to step back, take a deep breath and tell myself, “Slow down, enjoy the journey.” It’s not a race to the finish line, as a gardener is never finished with her garden. There will always be weeding, transplanting, dead heading, taking cuttings to root for the following year, careful notice to the readiness of seed heads for collection, and there is always something more to plant, another addition to the garden to find a space for.

As my walk of the garden comes to an end, I am grateful to have been there this morning. I am grateful for each day I will have there and the solace my garden with give. I take time to acknowledge my gratitude, and I make a promise to myself that I will better learn to enjoy the journey…one day at a time… for the day that is before doesn’t bring along a guarantee of tomorrow. Being grateful for the day that we are given and making every effort to live it to the fullest, teaches the soul to savor each delightful morsel as we make our journey.

Carolyn

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