As I near blog entry #150 here at The Back Porch, I am aware that some of the topics I elect to tackle have close connections with other entries written at earlier times. My intent is not to repeat the same message, but just the same, re-treating an idea that has stuck with me must say something about what I hold valuable.
Such surely is the case with spring.
I mean, how can a writer from the Midwest not be impacted by the amazing greens produced this time of year in our ‘blessed to be rainy’ climate? I have a couple of sibs who travel South every fall to enjoy winter activities in Florida. Cindy Lou and I have been down to see their lovely winter places, and we both admit, shirtsleeves in January is a fine situation to deal with.
Still, hanging out up here -- up North -- for winter allows the change of seasons to really get inside a person’s head. I truly love fall and winter. Hands down, both are favorite seasons for me. But by the time leaves fall and autumnal color turns to crunchy brown, we who stay are in for many indoor winter hours that have a tendency to get inside our bones. No back porch sitting or garden tending. Birds are still pretty good, though.
It’s always exciting, for me, to see the first flowers of the season blooming. Crocus, hyacinth, daffodil, spring beauties, dutchman’s breetches -- all first of season blossoms -- are colorful indicators that we’ve made it, that winter has passed.
But that’s just March and April. By the time May comes around, hold on to your seats. I’m talking green coming out of the natural woodwork. Ferns pop up and unfurl; day lilies erupt into full size, waiting to extend flowers later; dogwood and forsythia pass blooming and get on with the task of new hard growth; hostas come back from their winter retreat and tower over the leaves left on the beds as water-retaining mulch.
Such continues to amaze every year.
The pictures accompanying this image were taken just this morning at our place, which some loyal readers know we like to call Wild Grace, following an entire night of light rain. And, of course, we slept with the windows open so we could hear the continuing patter of raindrops on the trees just outside our bedroom window.
Wild grace, indeed. Wild spring!
Today’s Elder Idea: Spring also means tending and renewing house plants. Here’s a poem by Lynne Sharon Schwartz from a recent Writer’s Almanac.
Repotting
The healthy plant outgrows its pot
the way a healthy child outgrows its clothes.
Don’t let it suffer constriction. Spread the Sports
or Business section of the New York Times
on the dining room table. Find a clay pot
big enough for fresh growth. In the bottom
place pebbles and shards from a broken pot for drainage.
Add handfuls of moist black potting soil,
digging your hands deep in the bag, rooting
so the soil gets under your fingernails.
Using a small spade or butter knife,
ease the plant out of its old pot with extreme
care so as not to disturb its wiry roots.
The plant is naked, suspended from your hand
like a newborn, roots and clinging soil
exposed. Treat it gently. Settle it
into the center of the new pot, adding soil
on the sides for support -- who isn’t shaky,
moving into a new home?
Pack more soil around the plant,
tapping it down till you almost reach the rim.
Flounce the leaves as you would a skirt. Then water.
Place the pot back on the shelf in the sunlight.
Gather the Sports section around the spilled soil
and discard. Watch your plant flourish.
You have done a good and necessary deed.
‘Repotting’ by Lynne Sharon Schwartz
from See You in the Dark. Curbstone Books, 2012.
Used here without Ms. Schwartz’s permission. I hope she doesn’t mind.
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