Monthly Archives: April 2012

Rain, I Don’t Mind

Whether the weather…

Being a gardener, I can’t help but talk about the weather. Here in Kingston, it has been an unusually warm and dry spring so far, after an unusually warm and dry winter. I worry about the springtime ephemeral plants, which like moisture…after all, we have “mud season” in New England, somewhere in between winter and spring. But not this year. I am happy to see the Fawn Lily (Erythronium) blooming, and sad to say the Carolina Spring Beauty (Claytonia) doesn’t look like it will flower this year.

Mother’s Day is the yearly highlight of the Ericaceous Garden, however, the display is already beginning, so I would suggest a visit soon! There is beauty and color at every turn. The Royal Azalea (Rhododendron schlippenbachii) is in full bloom, and Koreanspice Viburnum (Viburnum carlesii) is sweetly fragrant throughout the White Garden.

“Whether the weather be fine,
Or whether the weather be not,
Whether the weather be cold,
Or whether the weather be hot,
We’ll weather the weather
Whatever the weather,
Whether we like it or not!”

—Anonymous

The Months

Leave a reply

“March brings breezes loud and shrill, to stir the dancing daffodil”. Sara Coleridge, 1802-1852.

Though it’s now April, that’s a perfect description of the weather we’ve been having. The daffodils and more are in bloom…I turned my back for a minute and spring has begun….

“April brings the primrose sweet, scatters daisies at our feet” Well, not so much here in New England, although it must have been so in the Lake District of “Old” England where Sara Coleridge was born and raised. Here, the ‘April White’ Rhododendron is blooming in a very timely manner, along with Pieris, Hazels, and an early flowering Cherry, ‘Snow Fountains’.