This past Saturday the weather went totally crazy, with temperatures up into the low 70's and plenty of sunshine before a storm tore through and took it down to 28 degrees with snow showers overnight! All I could think about as the temperature went up high enough for me throw open the windows was the pull of my tiny tabletop garden. It called to me: "Perfect day for a clean-up, don't you think?" So I grabbed my hand tools and went to work.
There is something about spring that calls to the gardener within us like bees to flowers. Visions of plants and flowers bursting into bloom, and ideas for new arrangements, or trying out new plants, flood our minds and hearts. It is our way of shaking off the winter gloom and welcoming in new possibilities. It doesn't have to be a huge garden. It can be pots on a window sill, or, like mine, a small table set up in a safe spot where, with a little work (and lots of YouTube videos), a few pots and a grow light, it can be your own secret garden.
This year I rearranged the entire garden, moving the fairy garden up front:
Gave the larger plants more room - the begonias spent the winter doubling in size!
Can you see the little cat thermometer hiding behind the leaves?
Everyone got a good pruning, had their soil aerated, and got a healthy drink. I won't be adding any new plants just yet. I have lived up here long enough to know that, even with a grow light, we can get hit with an April snowstorm and below freezing overnight temps that will challenge anything new, especially if I'm starting from seed or introducing something that was grown in a hot house. I will wait at least until mid-May to go plant shopping. As for starting plants from seed, while I haven't been successful in doing so in this location, I am contemplating purchasing or creating a mini-greenhouse to give them a better chance of surviving. Just thinking about going shopping for gardening supplies puts a smile on my face!
Sometimes, especially after a long, cold, gloomy winter, it's not the big things that bring us joy, but the little things, things we do with our own hands, things we love, that give spring it's reputation for offering us new ideas, new hopes, and new beginnings. On Saturday, before winter made a last ditch attempt to seize the day, I felt that joy with dirty hands, a fairy village, and plants that, I swear, are happier for the time I spent with them. Love comes in all shapes and colors, even green.
And so it is.
