In Georgia, March is the month of blooming dogwoods and azaleas, but here in Utah and other not-s0-warm states, it is the month of brown and gray. Brown lawns, hills, mountains, dirt. Gray clouds, skies, and moods.
March Dreariness
Gone is the white snow that creates a pristine landscape – except for those days where Old Man Winter blows in for a minute to remind us that spring’s arrival is delayed again. A few hearty crocus and daffodils dare show their colors to challenge snow-mixed-with-rain and bipolar temperatures, but most tulips are just sticking out their toes before taking the leap.
And then there are the pansies – those darlings that shiver and shake through November, December, January, and February to show the world that winter can be survived and spring will come again.
While I planted 90 tulip bulbs last fall, I didn’t put any pansies into the ground, and I missed their little promising faces peeking up through snow and dirt throughout those winter months.
Tulips - wherefore art thou?
Tulips are great and all, but their dormancy tests a gardener’s faith – will they truly show up, and how many will decide to keep sleeping? (Right now 62 of the 90 have broken through. What happened to the other 38??? Did I plant them too deep? Did I plant them upside-down? Is that possible?)
Today, G.E. brought me flowers for anniversary number 42!!! But he also bought AND planted pansies to fill up that vacant spot of garden dreariness. Which brings me to the brightest spot in March – the day I married the man I love!
G.E. cuddling with one of our 10 grandchildren!
Writing My Life 
March 27, 2011 at 5:07 PM
A delightful way to celebrate 42! Nicely done. Both of you.
Brrrrrrrrr…why am I always so cold in March and rarely complain of the cold in January and February?
And I always ask those same questions of all those tulips I planted the year before. Then the year after I look for two to replace each one. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to work? I’m too far away to count without climbing in the muck up the hill. In the meantime I’ll keep ogling the spring catalogs and displays springing up in nurseries around town.
March 27, 2011 at 11:24 PM
Alice, I can always count on you to share a great comment. I’ve been meaning to ask you how you get so many of your readers to leave behind a message or two.
Thanks for saying hello! R.
March 28, 2011 at 9:47 AM
‘Wish I had definitive answers, but I don’t. It does seem to me, however, that beginning around this time and year–and getting worse in summer–things slow down a lot. Even I’m finding it difficult trying to keep up with all my cyberspace friends’ activities. I decided not to take lack of comments as meaning anything but what a friend of mine remarked once. “I feel I can’t add anything else to the discussion,” (or something like that). Some are afraid, some don’t feel they know enough–many of my family I know and friends around my age. I usually comment on any blog–even if I’m just surfing–just as I might if we were face to face in a group. Off the cuff. Some people are just more talkative than others. Strange thing is I’m not very talkative really, I’m an observer, but I usually have something to say in print. I don’t get that many comments actually, but awfully happy when I do.