Contributed by Lynn Hutchinski
Surveying my garden today in the early morning chill (only 38 degrees – much better than 17!), I was struck by what a disaster area it seems to be. After a much ballyhooed record-breaking winter of snow in the Boston area and after a fall of neglect on my part, the side beds are covered in plant debris: partially-decomposed leaves, haphazardly-fallen dead stems like pick-up stix, overgrown dead foliage, forlorn-looking bare shrubs. It looks like a major flood came and receded.
But wait! If I look again, there are masses of green here and there – crocuses in royal purple, daffodils fattening up and even the green leaves of tulips starting out of the soil. It’s time to envision once again my garden dreams. There’s a rhyme and reason to the flow of seasons, as it says in Ecclesiastes: “to everything there is a season …; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted” and I feel the quickening of the earth waking up and stretching, and life moving and reviving the plants.
So it’s time for me to get moving – dig out the rake and hoe from the shed, find the empty trash barrels, and clean out that garden debris. A joyful response as I look forward to the unfolding of new blooms and the parade of emerging perennials that usually surprises me at some point as a plant shoots up in a spot that I thought was empty. However, if a ‘joyful response’ is not quite the emotion you have as you look at your emerging garden, please feel free to call us for your Spring clean-up – we’re ready to go and eager to celebrate the season.
