Confessions of a Plant Geek's Wife - #3: Nervous Spring Energy

For all the freedom I enjoy from being the wife of the plant geek, the few weeks before spring generally make me very nervous.  Throughout most of the year, when I'm either not paying attention or busy doing non-planty things, I trust Joe to do what he does best: take care of the plants.  But for these next few weeks, I'll be filled with anticipation and anxiety.

I have a list of favorite flowers, and most of them are springtime bloomers:

• Crocus
• Hyacinth
• Wisteria
• Orchid
• African Daisy 

We've been growing hyacinth for about as long as we've been married, I'm pretty sure.  I've harbored a fondness for these short-lived, fragrant, pastel-colored flower clusters since childhood, when my grandmother had an outdoor planter filled with them.  Their fragrance was unique; it would waft inside through her screen door, and around the front yard as my sister and I played.  Crocus has been a more recent addition to my list.  I don't recall seeing much of them growing up, but over the past several years they have either gained popularity, or I've just been paying more attention.  I love the colors and variation, as well as their compact size.  And naturally, I love that these two habitually return every spring.

Each year, as the season would come to a close for the hyacinth, Joe would divide up the new bulbs and plant them a little distance away from the older ones, ready for the following year to yield even more blooms.  And every year about mid-late February, the waiting begins.  Little green points start pushing their way through the soil, even though winter is nowhere near over.

Those light-green leaves in the center aren't weeds - they're Hyacinth!

Through snow and ice and frost after frost, I nervously anticipate sudden death for our little buddies. (Haha... "bud"dies... get it?)  After all, cold and frost is bad for plants, isn't it?  Aren't we told all our lives to cover up our fragile gardens before a predicted frost?  These little guys are resilient, though, and seemingly unfazed by frigid weather.  Even our recent 6-8" of snow, topped with about an inch or two of ice, and even more snow on top of that didn't break their stride.  A week after the ice all melted off, the flower heads are still pushing their way up.  I'm pretty sure I ask Joe multiple times each year why or if they will survive through everything.

After multiple snows and a quarter-inch of ice, they're still alive. So far. 

And then, to make matters worse, they never all come up at the same time.  Two or three of the hyacinth bulbs (I suspect the original three we started out with) are always the first to emerge, and having no idea how many we actually ended up with last year because Joe does all the bulb separating, I pace and wring my hands up and down the sidewalk in front of the flower beds every time we leave or return home until each and every plant has made it's appearance.  Where did that hole come from?  Have squirrels been eating my hyacinth?  Of course they haven't.  Hyacinth bulbs are poisonous.  Weren't there four right here last year?  Why are they only in these five places?  Something horrible has happened, I just know it.  We must have moles or something... the kind that don't leave hills and tunnels in the yard... oh right... poisonous bulbs.  Every year I worry, and every year almost all of them return on schedule.

"A Hyacinth is never late. Nor is it early. It arrives precisely when it means to!"

Except last year, the crocuses didn't bloom.  The green leaves made their appearance, but the flowers were a no-show.  This year, they are actually the first to bloom!  So I've let out a little sigh of relief and watched as over the past couple of days, one... two... three flowers have appeared.  They made it! :-)  Now I can rest a little easier.  At least until the next wintry mix forecast.  Which, incidentally, happens to be this weekend.