“Poor March. It is the homeliest month of the year. Most of it is mud, every imaginable form of mud.…”—Vivian Swift
Yes, it often comes in like a lion, roaring, growling, and discouraging. But the minutes of increased sunlight slowly add up, waking the garden and the gardener from their winter rest. This year, the vernal equinox will occur at 11:50 on the night of the nineteenth of March, when the sun will be directly above the equator. Spring will begin, and I will celebrate by planting sweet pea seeds inside, so that I can transplant them in April, and they will blossom in the garden by the end of June.
Outside in the garden, when the snow disappears, I’ll carefully navigate the mud to see how far the garlic has sprouted, and I will look for the emerging noses of flowering bulbs. Often, the melting snow will reveal snowdrops in full bloom.
The common snowdrop, Galanthus nivalis, is native to an area stretching from the Pyrenees (where it is called the neige-perce or snow piercer) to the Ukraine. The genus name is the combination of the Greek gala and anthos, meaning milk flower. In Greek mythology, Persephone, or Kore, queen of the underworld and goddess of vegetation, carried snowdrops on her return from Hades in the spring. The Victorians associated the snowdrop with darkness and perceived it as a portent of death and unlucky to bring inside. Carole Carlton wrote in her book, Mrs. Darley’s Pagan Whispers, “Folklore maintains that we should be wary of bringing them into the house before St. Valentine’s Day, as any unmarried females could well remain spinster.”
To some Christians, the snowdrop is known as the purification flower or the Candlemas bell, which is associated with February second, when the forty-day-old Jesus was presented at the temple and the Virgin Mary was purified. The second of February is about a month early for our New England snowdrops to bloom and, besides, we have a groundhog to honor on that date.
These beliefs are a heavy burden on such a small flower. I ignore them, and bring in a few snowdrops to admire their white and green perfection. Each arching green stem culminates with a conical receptacle from which six flaring white tepals emerge, three long outer and, rotated slightly, three short inner ones. An inverted lime-green heart shape is present on each smaller tepal. In the garden, snowdrops are small and easy to overlook, but inside, up close, they are like miniature lanterns. There are twenty species of snowdrops, some with double flowers or different patterning. Snowdrop enthusiasts, galanthaphiles, will pay hundreds of dollars for rare bulbs. The common snowdrop is very affordable. To increase numbers, clumps can be lifted after blooming, then separated and replanted.
As the days get longer, there are more signs of spring. The male goldfinches gain feather color daily until they appear true to their name. Golden yellow or burnt orange filaments of bloom open on the hybrid witch hazels, Hamamelis x intermedia. Small white flowers of the Korean shrub, Abeliophyllum distichum, bloom with a sweet fragrance. The smells of spring, especially that of sun-warmed earth, are invigorating. The air is softer and filled with sweet birdsong. Sap buckets and tubing sprout on the sugar maples. March is the firstmonth when the garden feels possible again, and it is just the beginning. Winter does not let go easily. Snow will fall, even after that first day of spring, covering emerging plants. Cold snaps will discourage us; muddy roads will infuriate us; icy rains will chill our bones. Yet spring will arrive, small plants will pierce the snow, bare ground will thaw and become mud, the garden will awaken.
“A garden…is a place of life, a mystery of green moving to the pulse of the year, and pressing on and pausing the while to its own inherent rhythms.”—Henry Beston
March, 2020
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