THE IMPATIENT GARDENER

The day after Christmas I start telling people that "this time next month we can say that in one more month we'll only have a month to go until we see the first crocus." That pretty much sums up my feelings about winter. Although my partner can drive through a "white-out" on the way to our cottage and say "Isn't this beautiful?"....he's usually greeted by silence because Woof and I are under a blanket in the back seat. I'm reasonably sane until Christmas...then out come the spring catalogs, and new sketches for a garden expansion.

By January the primroses start appearing in the stores, and after finally figuring out that those amazingly colorful little plants like the cold, I now have them year round. I sat a few of them out of the way on the floor of my little greenhouse one year and they surprised me by thriving and blooming for months. They ended up in the garden that summer, and with this mild winter they've been shyly blooming for weeks now.

I had a nursery guy tell me about the new "Delta" pansies a few years ago that are really cold resistant. Ever notice how many pansies you see in the Fall lately? I wait for them to go on sale in October and last year paid 1.50 for a whole flat. They've been blooming on my back porch in window boxes ever since. The Witch Hazel is so full and bright this year that it almost looks like forsythia, and the purple and yellow crocus underneath look as though I actually planned the display.

I try to divide the snowdrops every year after they bloom, and as tedious as that quickly becomes, the payoff next year makes it worth it. If the moles or voles or whatever the heck they are would take a hike my tulips would look a whole lot better in April. I planted hundreds of the Darwin Hybrids a few years ago (they really are perennial) and they were magnificent until those ugly creatures discovered them. At least nobody eats the daffodils.

As soon a I see the big burlaped forsythia plants for sale I'll buy two of them, strain my back by potting them up, and bring them into our front hall. I got the idea watching a Mass from the Vatican (no less), and we'll have a Spring cocktail party where the guests will be appropriately awed by my brilliant display. Later I'll plant them at the lake...(the plants..not the guests). I'll start the sweet peas on my heat mat this weekend...and also plant some outside on Good Friday..which is a family tradition.

This is going to be a long "pre-spring"...it feels as if tomorrow ought to be the first of April instead of the first of March. No doubt there'll be another "white-out" or two to contend with, and maybe Woof and I will peek out the window just to see if we can spot a patch of green that will improve the view from our cozy nest in the back seat.