Then Spring Came

Spring has returned. The Earth is like a child that knows poems.
Pablo Neruda

Spring, the gorgeous season of the year, has arrived in the garden. The garden suddenly a happy place full of activity and new beginnings. The lavender buzzing with thousands of bees, blossoms like fairy dust here one day and blown away on the breeze the next. The weeds in the paddocks so tall they obscure the view.

When the world wearies and society fails to satisfy, there is always the garden.
Minnie Aumonier

After everything we have been through this year, the saving grace for many would be the garden. A refuge and calming place away from troubles where the mind can settle, and the heart feels awe and wonder in nature. Exhausting yet relaxing, inspiring, and sometimes heartbreaking but always rewarding.

Life begins the day you start a garden

Chinese Proverb

Our autumn and winter were lovely and wet, the weather mild with only a few heavy touches of frost. Now the glory of Spring has well and truly shown us what a little rain can do. This year’s garden can only be described by the word Abundance—an abundance of growth, perfume, blooms, and possibilities.

With the wetter Spring and being home more often to give the garden more attention, my roses are looking just perfect at last. The first flush of roses is starting to build up and are very encouraging with magnificent large blooms.

Being a rather impatient gardener it has taken some time to realise that one must wait for roses and other plantings to fully establish themselves before becoming as gorgeous as I had hoped. As in the quote below from The Secret Garden, I recall the joy of realising that moment when, after all, the labor and work put in, you suddenly see that you actually have a garden. This year has been the awakening of my secret garden space. A rather carefree rural garden, eccentric and to some a bit wild although a refuge and source of enormous joy and delight.

“However many years she lived, Mary always felt that ‘she should never forget that first morning when her garden began to grow’.”
Frances Hodgson Burnett

Last year my garden never really had any blooms. They were picked off because they were damaged from birds, eaten by beetles, sucked dry by spider mites, windblown, and ravaged by nature’s heat and the unrelenting dust storms. Things are going well this season, though, and feeding and mulching are complete, and the garden is off to a wonderful start. However, the extraordinary heat and dust storms of last year are still close to mind, but one can be hopeful we have milder conditions ahead.

Health abound through the garden with black spot only on a few roses, due to the regular rain, and very few aphids or other pests. I always look at plants ‘ foliage’ to determine how healthy they are, and foliage this year is prolific, huge, shiny, and robust.

Joseph’s Coat climbing up an old water tank stand

With the onset of spring comes the time to deadhead. A task that will continue daily until next winter. Deadheading encourages new growth and will keep the rose blooms coming all summer long. Deadheading means to remove the spent blooms once the petals start to break up and fall off. I pinch the blooms off between my fingers any chance I get when walking past the garden beds. Then a more concerted effort is needed with sharp garden scissors or secateurs for the best results.

Spring a lovely reminder of how beautiful change can really be
Dodie Smith

Colours are popping amongst the lush green foliage. After a few more days, if it doesn’t rain too much, the beds will be a sea of mass colour.

Can words describe the fragrance of the very breath of spring?
Neltje Blanchan

Now that my original roses have been in the ground for 4 seasons, some are breathtaking in their color and size. The petals in this Paul Cezanne show that unique ruffled look, and the cupped blooms of Earth Angel are starting to form the distinctive cupped shape.