Tulips

April 14—today I planted three new roses in my rose garden—one Chicago Peace in mom’s little garden and a Pink Peace and a First Prize on the opposite side of the garden, by the robin bath. I’m planning on filling this space behind the roses, under the lilac tree, with one or two bushes… I’m already living my dream of creating a little jungle all around me. 

April 16—today, I planted two Quaking Aspens that soon will be willowing atop the back fence. All the rains have left and the sun has come out spilling new buds and life from sunshine filled pockets… 

April 24—this is the time of the tulips, the time of the awakening of the earth and the time for which my heart waits for all year around. Spring! How fresh and renewed the earth wakes up every morning, how glorious the light what shrouds the garden, blessing it from above in hundreds of tiny petals. My heart is overjoyed; my spirit swirls in morning breezes and bird songs. I go to the garden and my eyes cannot be still; contemplating, searching, drinking in all the glories and blessings the new day has to offer. 

The tulips I planted last autumn have all bloomed and are filling the garden splendidly with their pastel magic. I cannot describe in perfect feelings the joy they bring to my heart; the beauty, the silent blessings. Such delicacy and beauty in each bloom, that I have decided to plant more this fall and have filled with them that special space by the fountain I had been saving for the Boscobel roses for so long. In between the tulips, I have planted petunias; spreading petunias that will soon fill the space when the tulips are done, so that now, instead of roses, I will have a more compacted lower beds of beauty, that I am very much pleased with. I’m very comfortable with my decision, specially because the tree behind the fountain is growing rapidly and that area will be quite crowded soon. 

 

The crabapple tree is shedding its lovely cranberry colored petals and the garden floors is carpeted with them, and it looks as if the soil has turned dark pink all of a sudden.

 

It is such a great feeling to feel in total control of your garden, as it is with this one, and as lovely and lush as my southerner garden was, I cannot say that I love this one any less. I know exactly what I want to see here and what I don't.  There’s no weed nor petal growing without my permission; no wildflower without my consent.  

 

“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

 

“She turned to the sunlight
    And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbor:
    "Winter is dead.”
― A.A. Milne, When We Were Very Young 

 
 

“Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like?"...
"It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine...”
― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden.

 

What a beautiful thing!  To be alive beneath tulip blossoms…