The Calendar Lies

Wherein Our Heroine Doubts that April 5 and Thirty Degrees Really Go Together.

The house is a riot of color these days. I have tuberous begonias, three different colors of geranium, culinary herbs and one periwinkle hydrangea. They are probably longing for their eventual home: larger pots on the deck, or cozy holes in the side yard.

Here is the problem:

It's thirty-one degrees. Wind chill brings it down to eighteen. Wind gusts 22 to 26 miles per hour. And it's April.

So the plants huddle indoors, brightly colored heaps of foliage and flowers woefully peering out the windows at a harsh and challenging landscape. Outside, the trees are waving their bare, branchy arms and generally having a party in the wind. The hostas, just poking their spiky new growth above the ground, look as if they might just want to go back under the mulch for another week or so. The rosebush out front, which has recently been enthusiastically throwing out new, red shoots is now shivering. The clematis spent last night under upturned plant pots in order to protect their tender shoots from frost.

And it's April. The plants don't believe it, and I can't say I blame them.

Posted: Monday - April 05, 2004 at 08:01 AM | |