As I drove to work this past week I heard a report on NPR by Christopher Joyce about early spring and how it affects the plants and pollinators (bees). Recent springs have been climatically arriving about 7 days earlier than past decades.

This results in earlier snow melt, potentially earlier and longer summer droughts, missed pollination opportunities for bees, and compressed flowering periods. For our gardens at Mackenzie-Childs, it means my carefully planned 6 week bulb extravaganza is moving in fast motion.

I have planned for our gardens to have a rhythm and this spring I feel like my 2/4 time has been changed to 4/4. I make careful selections of narcissi and tulips to provide an interesting progression of color. The early blooming narcissi lead the show; theses tend to be the brighter yellow and orange and yellow varieties so the mid-April borders have a very bright yellow look.

I do not invest in a lot of early tulips because I like to give the daffs a chance to shine before the attention grabbing colors of the tulips take over. I throw in a few hundred Apricot Beauty, Beauty Queen and Purple Prince Single early tulips but prefer to delay the wash of bright colors for the Triumph, Darwin, and Lily tulips that usually bloom in late April or early May. This year, in most of the gardens, everything is coming almost at once.

The Impression series tulips that I love and can count on for Mother’s Day are all in full color. Salmon Parrot has been engendering inquiries regarding what they are. I am a bit relived to see that one of my favorites, Tulip Blue Amiable, is not showing any color yet- It is a fantastic bluey purple that, sadly, often signals the end of spring bulb season.

The Narcissi that bloom to compliment the later blooming tulips tend to be the white with different colored cup varieties. Combined with the predominantly salmon, pink, and purple tulips they give the borders a very confectiony feel. The pastel yellow Carmargne, Cream Perfection, and Crème Upstar tulips are beginning to show color. I usually depend on them to pop the darker colors of the late tulips but they are ahead of their dark compatriots this year so they do not have quite the pow-effect; I still love their creamy hues.
I have relegated the bright reds, strong yellows, and vibrant orange tulips to the back border we call the Bus Stop Garden.

There I have planted 4 varieties of red tulips to encourage long bloom period. They are all out at once this year- I have no idea which is which at this point. I no longer label the tulips when I plant them. We use zinc labels, the only ones I can tolerate, and we marked every group the first year. Disregarding the time it takes to neatly write each name, Corinne and I were positively twitchy by the end of the winter when all our formerly straight and even labels were tossed and twisted by the snows and frosts of winter.

Raking out the winter debris was a pain because the rakes would catch and it looked a little like a mini cemetery. Now we just make a photo album of the varieties we plant so that, if I cannot remember a specific variety, we can refer to the book. Sometimes I carry it with me in the gardens as I do spring chores in case a visitor wants to know a specific plant name, I can refer to it if my memory fails.
The warm weather in early April pushed things along but the cool weather over the last few days has helped preserve the blooms; I was very concerned that we would have blooms for only a day. Things are very ahead of schedule (lilacs already!) but they are lasting well.

We have other signs of spring abounding. The geese are again sitting on eggs. I did a quick count and came up with nine earlier this week. Two springs ago we had one hatchling; a combination of the American Buff and Tuffed Roman geese; I called it a Tufted Buff. Last year they sat on eggs for a while but none hatched.
The sheep have settled in superbly. They are quite the attraction and seem unfazed by the geese next door. Annick and Aidan, the lambs, are huge hits. They will be featured with their older moms and cousin, Cotton Candy, Violet, and Libby in the garden tour this weekend- be sure to drop by!