Pink

shades of the spring to come

I’m standing on the front step looking out across the garden feeling a small tingle of delight. After days of cold, of rain, of wet, there is a warmish feeling in the air, with a big emphasis on the ish. This leads me to think about spring and what it means. The possibility of change. Of things being full of colour again. For a moment I feel joyful. The night skies the past few nights have been a riot of colour. Passionate displays of reds and pinks that are there for only a minute. On nights like this I stand outside at dusk to admire and take photos. As I do, it feels that with each breath I take the sky looks different with the show over in a matter of minutes. Things are starting to wake and stir. That there is a very slow movement towards spring. It may feel like a millimeter of change but I am cherishing it so.

Later in the day I head to the garden hoping to finish the tidy up of the flower bed that I started the day before. It is the pink bed. There is a certain soft pink that I love against a fresh green. This was the initial theme for the garden however it has, over the past season, gone slightly a stray with its thematic design, so part of the tidy up involves a bit of planning to get the colour scheme back on track. The pink rosemary is starting to flower as to are the pink hellebores. I spy a bee exploring the rosemary. As I work I realise the hellebores are too far back in the bed. The flowers and then foliage that I can see now will eventually become hidden as the perennials emerge. I do like the foliage of hellebores in summer, they provide a fresh solid green background which makes my desired pink pop. I make a mental note to move them at some point. The spent lilies are chopped back as to are the seed heads of the pink scabiosa and the dark crimson hollyhocks (I like a spot of contrast). I remove the seed heads of the echinacea, reminding myself to add the pink echinecea I picked up on sale to this bed. I love seeing echinecea planted on mass. The bees do too. I have empty spaces that I will fill with pink salvias and I will add some more thyme which likes this spot. It can grow and covering gaps. The already established thyme spills across the path so I cut it back to the edge. There are packets of seeds which I have collected to sprinkle when it is warmer. Purple Peony poppy, Miss Jekyll Rose Nigella and I want to add some pretty pink straw flowers as well. They are all various shades of pink and will offer at different times in the warmer months food for the bees. As I weed I find a number of seedlings which I leave to see what secrets they will reveal as spring unfolds.

My time in the garden speeds by as always. What feels like 5 or 10 minutes is now and hour or so. The bed has been trimmed, weeded and covered in pea straw. Job done. It is a rinse and repeat of what I did (and wrote) last week. There seems something simple and comforting in tidying a bed and then repeating the task. It gives order to the eye but I think also to the mind, providing a peaceful foundation as the seasons begin to turn. It is like I too am waking from the hibernation of winter. Stretching out and exercising my mind and muscles for the coming garden year. As I turn to head indoors the feeling of spring that I felt earlier in the day has long since past. The sky is solid grey. The wind that has picked up is bitter and mean. It is definitely time to go inside but I am grateful for my snippet of what is promising to come.