April is National Garden Month….
And while that garden journal that I keep has shown that in other Aprils there have been plants in bloom, trees in bloom, bulbs past bloom at this point, this is not one of those Aprils.
You might have even heard the statistic: all of New England was exceptionally cold for March and Boston was colder in March than it had been for December, January or February. Now that’s cold!
I am fond of saying that we don’t really have spring here in Connecticut. Yes, trees bloom and we do have all sorts of lovely plants like azaleas and rhododendrons. But quite often, there is this “2 steps forward and 1 step back” pattern where we will have a nice day or two, followed by cold wet days (which we desperately need to end our drought, by the way and which we should all be grateful for but it’s hard to be grateful for them after the winter). And it’s especially hard to be grateful for them when it doesn’t really rain–when it’s just damp.
We will always get a teasing heat wave around Memorial day, and then the first and second week of June are so cold that I usually head right back for some kind of fleece and wonder if the plants I have just planted are going to make it.
It’s only at some point in July that the weather finally turns warm enough to finally make us think that summer has arrived. And then by August, cooler nights set back in and we’re back on our way to fall, which, thankfully, is a lovely season here or no one would live in the state at all. It would be deserted.
I know lots of people–gardeners even–live in much more inhospitable places. I am just not sure what mechanisms they use to cope.
Gardendaze 