Spring – the time of home and renewal, of promise for warmer brighter summer days ahead. But alas, spring is like a teenager. One day sunny and warm – the next day bleak and morose with howling gales.
Spring – the time for the equinox, when the winds howl and swirl to warn us that winter is not quite over and that warmth is still weeks away. Equinox warns us there is still a sting in the tail of winter. Those gales dash hope and lash the fresh young sappy growth, the buds which dare to suggest their time has come and those lambs valiantly frolicking in a wan sunlight.
Here in my garden the birds have arrived and Archduc Joseph stands proud and tall with his glory displayed in defiance of the wind and its lingering icy blast.
The word equinox suggests equality, evenness but that is not what we have had here in Otaki. We have not had a gentle move from winter to summer. We have had as the dictionary suggests a time when the sun crosses the equator and the gales that accompany the equality of day and night.
But in the garden the plants seem immune to suggestions that winter still lurks. We have plants in full bloom, fragile new tips scorched by the wind. Old Blush (Parson’s Pink China) is glistening the gloom with her silvery pink flowers, the Teas – Souvenir d’un Ami, General Schablikline, Archduc Joseph are all glorious and vibrant, their colours strong and protesting of the lingering cold. Sombrueil is just starting and Damescera Bifera has her first bloom. Accompanying them are the Aquilegias, the iris and the hardy geraniums. The hellebores are all but over and the trees show their fresh new growth. Mutabilis is spectacular and General Gallieni climbs his tree to nestle amongst the light green leaves.
So I grumble a bit, put back on my jumpers and watch the nascent garden struggling into glorious life, undeterred at whatever that dammed equinox throws at it.