Keep the Faith

"Keep your faith in

beautiful things;

in the sun when it is hidden,

in the Spring when it is gone." ~ Roy R. Gibson

A nice little quote in one of those catalogues we get in the winter, tempting us to spend our cash on knick knacks for the home or garden. While I definitely have too many things in the house, I do have faith in the beautiful things I've planted in my garden. Spring is getting close. It tempts us by slipping in and out; waxing warm for a day or two and then dropping to a 24 degree night again. The signs are all around now. The buds at the top of the saucer magnolia are swelling. The perennial's green crowns are pushing up just a little under those gray twigs and narcissus foliage and buds are rocketing up everywhere! The smell of spring isn't there yet. That damp earth, mossy smell is still keeping itself secret under the leaves. The buds on the bigleaf magnolia shown here are still tight, looking like large silver candelabra tips. This one blooms a little earlier and overlapping the blooms of magnolia grandiflora. These flowers are huge, sometimes over a foot across from petal tip to tip. They unfurl, the pointed tips falling outward. The fragrance is somewhat sharper, and more narcotic than grandiflora. We've noticed bees tumbling around in the center, drunk on the nectar. If we don't help them out, they'll die in there. Pretty poison or something else? We've noticed the same behavior with bees and datura , but no dead bees. Winter is less restful for us in the South. Warm days and lots of evergreen shrub choices mean gardening can go on all year without any snow cover. This is good and bad. It's bad, in that frost heaving due to temperature extremes can expose plant roots and they'll have to be pushed back down. It's good, in that we get that dose of green all year and even in January, Spring is not all that far away.