Spring has Sprung?

Taking advantage of warm temperatures and a clear sunny sky, I spent the afternoon doing a bit of gardening – the first of the season, nothing more than the initial clearing up of a few flower beds and borders, a bit of snipping and pruning.

It is always heartening, this advent of spring, and it emboldens one to clear up the debris of winter, sweep memories of cold and damp aside, think of bright days ahead. So with determination I set out, rakes and clippers in hand.

One sad rule of our garden (can we call it ‘Dan’s Law’?) seems to be ‘if you plant it and want it to grow, it won’t; if you don’t want it to grow, it will flourish.’

My first attack cured an unruly wisteria of its Medusa-like sprouts. For some reason a former tenant planted the poor thing in the middle of the lawn where it has nothing to support its long, clinging tendrils. You could have mistaken it for one of those apocryphal Italian ‘spaghetti trees’ festooned with bounteous stems - until I snippered away all its dangling vines.

Next came an onslaught against the myriad suckers that insist on growing from the base of a bay laurel tree, sapping desired growth further up and creating an unsightly mess around its lower trunk. These slim, unwanted branches grow vigorously and manage to crowd out the sunlight and space for three azaleas we planted, each now budding and in need of all the help they can get.

The lawn is now dotted with little piles of leaves and twigs that I raked from the long border on its northern edge. I was scratching away at the ground with the rake when I realized that Arcadio, exuberant to out-of-doors with me, was doing his part – madly scratching at the ground alongside me as if to say, ‘I’m very happy to help!’