Rebirth

This is the time of year when I am always amazed my plants have survived the winter, especially the older trees and shrubs in the backyard. The apple tree, lilacs, pear tree and viburnum are leafing. The dogwood is showing buds that will become flowers two years after half of the tree died and had to be cut down. The daffodils, after several false starts when the weather turned cold, have bloomed in profusion. Many of the irises I moved to another plot last year are growing despite chipmunks at first digging them up. 

After the haircut (Margo D. Beller)

As usual in the spring deer found a way to get through a weakness in the netting to eat some of the euonymous bushes as they started to put out fresh growth. So the fence posts were straightened and increased, the netting restrung. Before doing that I hacked the euoymous shrubs back severely. The plants are secure but now I wonder how I'll be able to do maintenance when the daffodils die back in a few weeks.

I have not dealt with putting the canna pots out front yet because we've had weather see-sawing between above and below average temperatures. With the chipmunks in mind I am going to limit what pots I put out front, including any herb or vegetable I may buy to grow.

Finally, I had to give my houseplants a haircut after leaving them untended (except for watering them) all winter. They won't go out to the enclosed porch before Memorial Day, and I plan to be very careful to monitor for any insect invasion, such as last year's fungal gnats.

Before it was brought inside for the winter in 2024.
(Margo D. Beller)

The most problematic, as usual, was the big houseplant.

You'll recall I had allowed this once-small houseplant to get so big it had become very difficult to move in winter, especially up and down the three steps to my front room. Last year I tried leaving it outside but when the wind blew it would fall over, despite its bracing. I moved it inside the porch into the corner where it would get a few hours of sun. Alas, when it got very cold the plant became very stressed. I've never intentionally killed a plant and wasn't about to start. So I brought it inside to the kitchen, but it didn't get any natural light there. I wound up moving it into a corner of my vestibule where it would get some light from the front room.

After several months a strange thing happened: Despite dim light and dry heat, it started growing new leaves for the first time in years.

First that growth was at the top, the new leaves scraping the ceiling. But then the plant started growing from the bottom. Now what to do? Well, when the top leaves started dying en masse, it was easy to decide to use my lopper and chop down what had become an unwieldy tree. With the braces that had held up the plant now gone (and used to reinforce the deer fencing) it was much easier to move the pot to the front room.

Spruce at right, watching the big plant.
(Margo D. Beller)

The other morning I told Spruce Bringsgreen, the blue spruce we planted in 2007, what I had done and why his plantmate would not look the same when back on the porch this year. Last year Spruce had watched over this plant once I moved it inside and fretted about what to do as winter approached.

"That's OK," he said. "I understand why that had to be done. Rather than kill it outright you gave it a new chance to live and grow."

True, I said, and that's what Spring is all about - rebirth.