Is it SPRING yet?

My calendar tells me it’s only March 14, but my feelings tell me something else.  Thoughts running constantly through my head have convinced me it’s already SPRING.  Our Texas winter has been so mild this year, but it still limited what I love so much – yard work, raking, cleaning piles of leaves, assessing how my plants have survived a few frosts, moving plants to the deck that have “wintered” in my sunroom, and, best of all, planning trips to the garden store. 

March 21, the vernal equinox, is the day that daylight and night time are even.  I always look forward to this time of year since mid-December when we gradually have more hours of daylight, which means more hours to spend outside, either working in the yard or reading and eating supper on the deck. 

  

I know many of you are still covered with snow, and when burrowed into down-lined jackets and coats it’s hard to get excited about gardening.  I lived like that for many, many years, but now Texas is my home and SPRING comes sooner.  No more do I have to wait until the “vernal equinox” to get my hands dirty with yard projects and plantings.  And, that’s a good thing because this year my patience has grown short and won’t allow me to wait seven more days until SPRING officially arrives.

  

Yesterday we went to Austin’s Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center with our 8-year-old granddaughter and my urge to get my hands in the soil grew even bigger.  When we took her home her mother gave me some plantings that today ache to get into the bare spots around my deck.  I’m afraid trips to Lowe’s or Home Depot this week will end up with the garden sections sucking me outside like a giant magnet.  Sad, but true, the moment I pass through the sliding door from the interior of either of those stores my frugal efforts vanish.  I can justify any purchase there as I cruise my shopping cart up and down the aisles of lush, green ground cover, freshly budded plants ready to burst into color, shrubs begging to join others thriving in my back yard, and house plants ready to the take the places in my sunroom now occupied by begonias and geraniums staying warm through the chilly winter days.  And, when my nose catches the scent of cypress mulch in bags stacked against the fence, it is truly the fragrance of my SPRING.  “Yes, I’ll add a few bags of that to the cart,” my heart and mind will insist.  Does a gardener ever have enough mulch?

Well, enough of my personal celebration of SPRING.  What are plans for your garden and yard this spring and summer?  Please share your comments about SPRING arriving next week and what gardening and yard work is like in your neck of the woods.  You don’t have to be a Master Gardener to share great ideas that everyone can enjoy and use.  What are you going to try that’s new to your yard or porch?  I’m looking forward to some helpful tips, myself, especially if it means I can head back to the garden store again before “playing outside.”

Terri Clamons, author
Cocaine Campus, The Toy Room, and Corporate Prince,

Suspense, adventure, and intrigue with a light love story.

The Church Mouse That Flew, a story of learning to pray for children and adults

Jenny And Her Backyard Zoo, a story of Peacemaking for children and adults

Crosswise Charlie, a story of building lasting friendships for children and adults

All 6 books available as paperbacks and ebooks at Amazon,

       listed under Terri Clamons 

You are invited to visit my website: http://terriclamons.com

Please read and comment on my blog: http://blogbyterri.blogspot.com