One Step Forward

and two straight back – welcome to spring in New England!

Until Friday of this last week, we had the most glorious weather. It could legitimately be described as hot – some enthusiastic/hardy souls were in shorts and T-shirts. Glorious sunshine, warmth on the breeze, clear blue skies. Good to be alive weather.

But Friday was a beast. Snow, howling gale and temps in the thirties. Back to coats, hats and car seat heaters. After nearly two weeks of deception, we’re back to New England’s true springtime colors.

I had tried very hard to not get ahead of myself this year about spring. When we first moved up here thirteen years ago, I would be out with a pick axe breaking up the ice to help it melt faster. I’d be on edge for weeks for the day the grass would seemingly turn green overnight. Every green shoot was welcomed with its own personal homecoming parade. Nothing could spring up out of the ground fast enough.

Being able now to embrace the joys of winter has taken that demented edge of off my spring excitement. I’ve learned the hard way that the longer things take to emerge the better their chances of dodging a frost. (Oh, the misery of watching my beautiful Magnolia Stellata being transformed from a bridal confection into a tree of old used tea bags.) Our last frost date here is Memorial Weekend – so another eight weeks to go before any annual growth can sleep uncovered if the temperatures drop. Getting overexcioted just leads to an awful lot of flaff and or early disappointment.

But this year I’m also finding it hard to muster my usual optimism for the spring and the gardening year ahead as barely out of the gates and I’ve had three big knocks already.

I had tried to outsmart Jack Frost to some extent by planting a lot of biennial and hardy annuals last autumn. These are plants that either prefer a long cold spell of root development or need a year to get going before flowering. They also don’t love the full heat of summer so having them ready to flower in May and June is a win for all of us.

I had invested in some heavy-duty frost cloth and done everything it said to do on the tin. In the past I’ve not bothered to cover my biennials and they’ve popped back just fine. But better safe than sorry I thought as I tucked them all up nicely.

I’m sure they were nice and snug in there. Or were until the region’s mice and vole populations were made aware of this horticultural Center Parcs. Every single one GONE! Five beds of snaps, delphiniums, poppies and foxgloves. Whether it’s a consolation or insult to injury that the bed of ammi that I ran out of cloth and steam to cover last December is the only bed full of little green sprouts.

I had also tried to be clever last November when planting my cutting tulips. We had a hint of tulip fire here last year and after two years of growing in the same cutting beds, I decided not to risk it spreading to the main tulip beds. Plus, everyone was telling me to forget the hassle of digging out existing beds but to create temporary raised ones for them to grow in.

So, we did just that. Once I had dug the dahlias, the Silver Fox knocked up four twenty-five-foot temporary frames on top of the beds. I placed the bulbs and we covered with compost. Oh My God was it so much easier than in the past. OH MY GOD that should have been the warning right there and then that this was way too easy!

Suffice to say so far, I have no signs of tulips. Of the 10,000 bulbs that went in, not one, not a single shoot has deigned to stick her head above the parapet. I know everything is a few weeks behind where we normally are by this time but to have nothing? On Thursday I could not stand the suspense any longer. I pulled back the wire that was in place to stop the squirrels helping themselves and had a dig around.

Woe is me! Half the compost is still frozen solid. Of the bulbs I could wrench out, some had rooted nicely, but others NOT AT ALL. As in no roots, looking exactly as the day they went in four months ago.

The urge to go bananas and uncover every single bulb to see what’s happening was immense and one I am still fighting now. In an attempt to force some movement, I have ordered plastic sheeting to create low tunnel/greenhouse conditions over the beds. Even if I it had arrived, the outcome of battling and securing forty-foot pieces of 10-foot-wide plastic into place in today’s winds would only be my temper heating up to boiling point.

Lastly our grass. The bloody disaster that is once again our grass. I despair of it. Hands down the hardest thing I have found to grow here is the bloody grass! More time, more energy, more money on getting the stupid grass to just grow and then stay alive. Not so it looks immaculate – God I gave up on the croquet lawn in Year One. Not even so it even looks green for more than a few months. Just so it is there.

Last summer the grubs moved in and did an absolute number on it. Huge swathes without a single remaining blade. Then the skunks came and dug for grubs. The dogs dug for the skunks. Think less neat green stripes and more Texas tumbleweed and a battlefield from the Somme.

Attempts to aerate and patch sow were a complete wasted effort thanks to the then ten straight weeks without a drop of rain from the beginning of September.

The Silver Fox is game for a rerun in April. I just know that anything sown this spring will never make it through the summer heat without irrigation. And that is not happening. So, all in all, I’m feeling a little disillusioned with things out there right now. Somewhat lacking in the new year, new season, new term enthusiasm.

There is always a lot of wait and seeing to be done in gardening. As ever, there is the consolation of there always being next year to try again. It just seems a little bit harsh to be telling myself that when this one has barely started. But as the Silver Fox is always saying, the secret to happiness is having low expectations. At least on that basis then, there is reason to be cheerful.