Early Spring
A Gardening Haibun
Dear Readers,
March 23rd and spring has come to our neck of the woods. Plentiful moisture and a mild winter have the flowering trees bursting at the seams — a glorious sight!
After a seven-year sojourn in Sarasota, nostalgic for seasonal change, we returned to the northeast, this time to beautiful coastal Delaware. These three years we have appreciated the scenic fields, woods, and beaches. Now, we are preparing to hop the Bay back to our home state, New Jersey, and settle into the serious business of retirement near Jersey beaches and Pinelands, closer to family.
We've missed our Pennsylvania perennial gardens. Once upon a time, I operated a small landscape and design company, and enjoyed a rustic gardening life in a Bucks County farmhouse. But my gardening days were interrupted by a brain bleed. Fortunately, I’m still very good at choosing perennials, and at pointing. My long-suffering husband is willing to plant at our new home, and we want to plan a few small-space plots.
In this piece, I revisit a composite of gardens I’ve known in Montgomery and Bucks Counties. Hope you’ll enjoy this memory. An early version of this Japanese poetry was published by Carpe Arte journal. ~ Thank you, Mary Ellen
Early Spring: A Gardening Haibun
St. Patrick’s Day has passed, and my anticipation is heightened. Periodic bursts of mild Pennsylvania air and a strengthening sun are calling crocuses and daffodils to rise and shine. Recent snow patches have dissolved into sudden warm days. It’s time to start in gardens. I peel layers of wool as my industry warms me. I know what to do first: Mats of maple leaves have lain since autumn stuck to frosted soil. I lift them off in sheets to reveal yellow-green growth and the scent of healthy humus.
My fingertips feel the bite of the partly frozen ground even though I’m wearing neoprene garden gloves. I resist gloves, preferring to make direct contact in all seasons, but these early tasks demand I wear them. My back is warm as I crouch along the border, still stiff from the winter couch. It will be weeks before I maneuver freely in the beds, commencing clean up, planting, and dressing the beds. The first beds are free and breathing, and I pull the Felco pruner from my back pocket and start to clip the Perovskia. Russian Sage’s scraggly slender branches, winter-bleached, still holding summer’s fragrance, are twisted and broken from months of snow. I shape the plants along their stems, as I do the Lavender, going further down the wood to pale new growth or a tuft of green at the base. By May, the plants will be full and fragrant. Then the roses. Snipping the shrubs now encourages April growth. Recall how: — just above a five-leaflet leaf. After the long winter, feel the satisfaction of simple actions that create blooms!
towering tulip tree
buds dance in a breeze
trill of redstart warbler
© Mary Ellen Gambutti
I could say much about this, but I will limit myself to this to salute all this writing about the spring. "Spring, spring; beautiful spring!
Good read!
Very nice....nature viewed through the eyes of a poet. TY