Shadowgarden

Dear Snowdrop

When I returned home last Saturday after playing piano for ballet class I immediately changed into cold weather armor and marched right into the garden with its fading Winter light, armed with heavy gloves and minimal tools; pruner, trowel, and my father’s old giant screwdriver. Of course I did, it seemed as though there were nowhere else to go. Still some wintry tasks to do I suppose, but mostly because something had happened, just before this story started, that made me need to go there.

The moment I stepped through the gate I saw the first snowdrops. They were blooming at last. The Pacific Northwest can be cold and grey for long stretches, but a garden is a constant and daily reminder of the inevitability of renewal, even at its most dormant.

Snowdrops are the epitome of hope, really, but are often tested by Winter who is not really finished yet, and (with the sudden charm still ringing in my ears) they are to be put to hard freezing nights.

Tonight it should drop well below freezing, which while not extreme is certainly cold enough to damage delicate plants filled with water throughout, and during these cold spells my house becomes home to Shadowgarden refugees. When I know the cold is coming, I’ll collect all the pots with delicate rhododendrons and little Japanese maples, and those with repotted inhabitants still shocked from the move. I’ve spent some time shifting things around now that they’re all mostly dormant and if most of them can survive, this Spring should be wonderful. Heavy pots, in a garden designed to be on a hillside, all trundled in, and the rest collected in little huddles under a blanket, the seedlings, the starts, or wrapped all alone like the rose or the blueberry.

Heavy work, and a front foyer crowded, a forest indoors. It should be cold here for the week ahead, and I will have to stay out of the garden. But the snowdrops blossomed that day.