Come on, Spring!
Let me just say, for the record, that I love Austin’s winters. For one thing, they aren’t summer. For another, they aren’t that cold. We often enjoy sunny days in the 60s, even 70s, mingled in with some 50s, and only the occasional hard freeze. It’s a great time to be outdoors, gardening, hiking, sitting on the patio at Shady Grove, strolling around Lady Bird Lake. You get the idea.
This year, however, I’m sick of winter. I’m ready for spring! I want leafy texture. I want color. I want flowers and butterflies and singing birds! Is this how you northern gardeners feel every year? 🙂
Spring is coming. The gopher plant (Euphorbia rigida) knows it. Soon chartreuse flowers will ornament its beautiful blue-green foliage.
Poppies have grown tall from seed shared with me by Linda at Central Texas Gardener Blog. I always think of the Wicked Witch of the West cackling, “Poppeeezzz,” don’t you? No! Not when I think of Linda (who’s more like Glinda). When I think of poppies.
Trailing ‘Candy Corn’ abutilon has recovered from our big cold snap faster than reliable ‘Marilyn’s Choice.’ The red buds, dangling like bleeding hearts, will soon open and show the yellow point that gives them their common name.
Come on, Spring!
All material © 2006-2010 by Pam Penick for Digging. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
Yes, Pam, that is exactly how we feel every year. It’s funny, I pretty much just said the same thing in a post yesterday. But I think we’ve finally turned a corner & spring is on its way. What’s also funny is that I actually cackle “Poppeeezzz…Poppeeezzz will make them sleeeep, sleeep” when I look at my Poppies. I think my neighbors are used to me. That Abutilon is gorgeous.
I am a bit more northern then you and it’s how I feel now. I am ready for winter to take a hike to the Southern Hemisphere….as MMD said in her post. I love the big, beautiful pansy shot~great color. gail
i noticed while out in the garden today that the light is looking different and while it was chilly, it was a different feel to the air. i think spring is on it’s way!
i’m growing poppies for the first time this year and planted the seeds back in november as recommended. with our freezes i thought for sure all was lost, but mine are growing tall and strong! can’t wait to feel part of oz! 😉
Pam I think you are describing a Scottish summer with those temperatures! Oh I am yearning for spring too and as each week goes by we seem to take one step forward and 2 steps back as our weather is very wintery again – just the way you had snow earlier in the week. Your poppies have some great growth already and those little violas are so cheerful to look at too. Have a great day 🙂
do you think it’s too late to get the poppies started? I put some seeds in just a few days ago (right after our snow), and keep watching the ground for signs of life.
I think it’s probably too late, Eric. Poppies, like larkspur, bluebonnets, and many other spring-blooming wildflowers, should be sown in fall in central Texas. —Pam
Now you know why I’m always “whining” about winter!! 🙂
It’s not much fun, especially in the garden. I’m ready too ~ I just wish it would hurry up.
Yes you described my feelings perfectly. I want SPRING!!!!!!!!!! We’ve had hints of it but I want the real thing, now.
Right now I’d just like more sunshine. It’s dreary, rainy and cold here today. Those couple days of sun we had this week finally coaxed the daffodils to reveal little buds. Their leaves are still very short though. We all have a right to complain about this winter!
I, too, like Mr. McGregor’s Daughter commented, thought we’d turned a corner on winter. And then that wily temptress, mother nature, threw a big snow at us. So here I am, back shovelling the driveway and clomping around in big snow boots.
This far north, sometimes the spring longing turns to dispair, but then that’s what trips to garden shows and Hawaii are for, I suppose. If spring doesn’t show signs of coming soon though, I might need that trip to the big island to remind me what warmth from the sun feels like!
Christine in Alaska
If the rain would stop, I’d be happier. Is such a wet winter normal? We are new to the area (Waco), so I’m not sure. I’m hoping to dig up another plot for veggies tomorrow, but its cloudy today. I’m afraid it will rain again! Oh, well. We previously lived in Los Angeles, which doesn’t have winter at all, so I’m thankful for some cold. It get dull having hot summers and warm winters, with never a cold day to be seen (or very rare at least).
No, this winter is much wetter than normal, Rachael, thanks to El Nino. We sure needed the rain to bring us back from the dreadful drought we’ve been under for two years. But it will be nice to have some dry, sunny weather again. I’d love to have some of this rain spread through next summer, wouldn’t you? —Pam
I’m with you. We don’t have the snowed under winters of the East coast, but I’m sooooo ready for spring. Yesterday the sun was shining, the daffodils blooming…and today…rain. More rain. Apparently winter isn’t quite done with us yet.
My wife says this is what we get for participating in a pagan ritual on February 2 and letting an animal decide when spring arrives. She’s right. We should be checking tea leaves.
And then it got cold (sic) again this afternoon. My tools are where I dropped them. I’m ready for Spring too!
Pam, I do feel this way every year, but most years, I don’t start feeling it until sometime in mid-late March. (Until then, I enjoy winter as a real season with its own beauties and pleasures.) This year, though, Maine has had almost no snow and warmer than average temperatures for the entire month of February. It looks like late March or early April outside. Under these conditions, it’s hard not to get sucked into the idea that spring is almost here. I’m trying not to believe it and to brace myself for the return of winter. Unless spring comes weeks early here, we still have a couple of months to go until things really start to bloom.
I’m afraid this is going to go on for longer than we expect. Then woomph-summer! Right now welcome. It seems to be one day on one day off. I can see when it comes it is going to be pretty good in your garden. I don’t know how you do it with the abutilon- mine succumbed to the freeze.
No special trick, LR. I expect my garden is warmer than yours since I’m more in-town than you are. The abutilon have a southeastern exposure and back up to a wall of the house, so they were protected from the worst of the freezing weather. —Pam
I don’t feel this way every year but this year I am sick of it. Nuff sed.
Yes….very ready for spring. Easter is earlier this year. Maybe that means spring is just around the corner.
My mother always warned of the ‘Easter Spell’…..a cold front that comes just before Easter. I don’t think I’ve had many years I didn’t get caught by one. I jump the gun, and believe spring is here, plant things, then wham…..you’d think I’d learn. But, it’s so easy to get sucked in, when it’s 80 and sunny.
Let’s hope spring is near. Maybe if we all click our ruby shoes…????
Love that shade of orange. Also the abutilon-I just find these sort of multiple hanging blooms real;ly pretty-like earrings.
My husband and I are just about to climb the walls from not being outside! Snow flurries. Cold. Wind. Snow flurries. Wind. Cold…. ENOUGH!
When you find SPRING – send her our way, please!
Cameron
Beautiful images here…
Such beautiful photos. There’s always something special about Spring. It has it’s own “scent” of growth. Difficult to describe, but it smells different and feels different than any other season. Nothing beats the sun-kissed scented fertile earth, and you can almost hear the new growth. Probably what makes it so special!
Poppies! Your poppies look great, Pam!
It was a beautiful day here, albeit a little windy, and I enjoyed some time outside. I wasn’t in my own garden but at the Extension Center, working the Master Gardeners’ Tomato and Pepper Sale. I’m crediting a feeling of spring in the air with persuading me to purchase 4 tomatoes and 4 peppers. I’ll have to baby them for a couple of weeks, they tell me, especially considering another front is coming through on Monday. Bah humbug.
Yes, please, come on spring. I am weary of winter. In fact, I was just thinking I need to book a plane ticket to Austin in a month and see the bluebonnets and you again.~~Dee
Let’s plan on it, Dee. The bluebonnets are supposed to make a good show this year. —Pam
Pam It looks to me like you already have spring? Your photos are full of green leaves? Almost Spring is when the snow melts away revealing yellow, dead looking grass and maybe the first crocus shoot, not yet turned green. Spring is when buds start to unfurl tiny leaves that eventually turn green. Even though it’s been a mild winter. This is still 6-8 wks away.
I was waiting for a cold-climate gardener to knock me over the head and tell me that it looks like spring already, Melanie. 😉 I know that when southerners, with their winter-green gardens, complain about winter it doesn’t always go over well with those who really know what winter is. Kind of like when cold-climate gardeners get a few 90-degree days and complain about the unbearable heat. Hee, hee! Thanks for putting up with my whining. I hope spring comes early for you this year. —Pam
It feels like we’ve turned the corner here with temps that are predicted to hit 40 degrees by the end of the week. Has not been that warm since the first week of Dec. I am able to see about a foot of bare ground next to the house on the south side. But we traditionally get one of our biggest snowfalls of the year around St. Patrick’s day so winter is probably not gone for good. Love the Yucca!