Rainy February Morning

This morning is an amazing one, rain first, and now bird song.  With great strength of purpose, Charles has kept his back yard feeder filled through the fall and winter, but migrating birds did not flock to feast here as he had hoped.  In Knoxville we had ten or more families of cardinals who lived year-round with us, but I think we are in an area where more people provide feeders, and the birds have feeding habits that don't include us, as yet.  Or maybe we should provide more gourmet seed . . .?  Hmmm . . .

In thinking about the spring to come (some say it is here already, but I can't give February away to Spring just yet), I am eager to see the flowers returning, to see which plants needs replacing, and what must be moved to a more compatible location.  Poor Charles is my gardener-in-training, so I'm glad he has kept himself limber by his labors in the gym all fall and winter!

One of the greatest gifts of the garden last year was sitting and crocheting or embroidering on the patio.  There is no way to sit in a garden in bloom and not be inspired by the color and texture there— creeping jenny dripping over the lip of a cobalt-glazed pot, zinnia, marigold, and miniature buttercups crowding together, while the foliage plants in all their gentle curves and sharp angles form a lively backdrop for the dianthus, coreopsis, echinacea, and salvias.  The grey stone I used to build the terrace walls is beginning to darken and streak, now, and Charles' thyme is flourishing between cracks in the flagged terrace.  In a few more years, the garden will look as if has been here forever.

The bulbs, of course, are pushing aside the soil and elbowing their way into the light.  Every day we see some new little scrap of color emerging from the pine straw mulch.  I saved dozens of bulbs for the planters last fall, thinking that once the bulbs were up in the spring, I could survey the yard and move them from pots to places that need more early color.  A garden is always changing as it is a living thing—and a very needy one!

So, I am thinking in soft spring colors as I sort thread in the studio and think about pale linen for stitching.  The road maps that I am so interested in have given way to thinking of maps as a way of moving through gardens, and of the different levels and perimeter plantings as outdoor rooms.

It is when Charles uncovers the fountain, however, that the spring will have truly come to the yard.  Birds who are too impatient to wait their turn at the bird bath will settle here to bathe or drink, and the squirrels will climb up for a sip of water toward the end of the day.  I have even seen the rabbits come to the herb garden beside the fountain and watch the moving water with large, darting eyes as they eat my lovely greens (I am a Beatrix Potter devotee, believing rabbits can be forgiven anything simply for the pleasure of their company).

Such are the garden dreams of a rainy February morning in Zone 7b.  Hope your February is a good one!