The trees still look kind of bare, but, if you look closely, tiny leaves are there.
The world laughs in flowers.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
We’re a few weeks into “calendar-spring” (spring according to dates) now and the trail is slowly beginning to change. The days are getting rapidly longer – at the winter solstice, sunset was around 4:30 and it now happens at 7:30 (of course, one hour of the time difference is due to Daylight Savings Time). The temperatures have been consistently warmer, with highs in the mid-60s on some days. There has been quite of few rainy days recently and the ground, when not muddy, is damp. All this is causing Mother Nature to stir from hibernation.
Today, the skies are blue, the temperature is in the low 40s and there is a bit of a wind which drops the wind chill down to the high 30s. As Waldo and I walk down our trail, I occasionally stop and look closely at a dangling branch. The oaks and maples have these waxy buds at their tips that look like bundles of tiny leaves balled up into fists. Around the apartment building are some red maples and they already sport crimson flowers, but there are none here. Moss and liverwort are turning a darker green and are plumping out and looking healthier than they did in winter. Bitter dock leaves have sprouted, along with skunk weed in very wet places, and garlic mustard is everywhere. Even the Japanese knotweed has started to send up thick, red and green sprouts.
A couple of weeks ago, I saw some ads for wildflower seeds and that planted an itch in my brain (the grist of any successful marketer). Since then, I’ve been toying with the idea of planting some along the trail. The idea of walking past a field of brightly colored wildflowers tugs at my soul. In order for the seedlings to have a chance of taking root, though, I had to find a good open patch of soil not directly under a big tree. I needed to avoid places where Japanese knotweed grows, too, because that stuff is ninja-empowered to overwhelm everything else. The other weeds, that normally grow next to the trail, are still twigs and roots and haven’t yet blossomed light-stealing umbrellas. Maybe newly planted flowers could compete in those places. But, I figured, I’d have to avoid planting any seeds where there is a lot of grass as grass is really hardy stuff and would not readily give up territory for a pretty little thing.
I finally found a possible patch of ground running about thirty feet south from the Covid garden and four to six feet wide. The Covid garden itself didn’t receive as much care last year as it did in previous years. I don’t know why. Maybe wildflowers will encourage some more interest. Anyway, the ground was covered by dead leaves and broken sticks and only had a few small bunches of garlic mustard here and there. I borrowed a rake from Christine and clawed the fall detritus from that ground, toward the ditch that runs next to the trail. Underneath all the fallen oakleaves was soft, black, loamy soil. No evidence of other plants. I raked the ground until it was quite loose, then broadcast on the surface the seeds I bought. I then raked the ground lightly again to cover at least some of the seeds in a little topsoil.
I chose a day to do this when it was forecast to rain intermittently for the following three days. I’m relying on Mother Nature to do most of the gardening and have no intention of watering or weeding the crop. They are, after all, wildflowers. I left Waldo home and spent about a half-hour raking and spreading what was supposed to be 50,000 seeds. A couple of people passed me while I was working, but they ignored me. I suppose it did look like I was working on an extension of the Covid garden. Anyway, according to the package, 50,000 seeds is enough to sow over 2,000 square feet. I spread them over about 200 square feet, or even less. I decided that if the going was tough for the seedlings, maybe overplanting would allow at least some of them to survive. I admit it, I don’t know what I’m doing.
That was a little over a week ago. In the interim, it rained as forecast. Today, I’m paying close attention to that ground to see if there is any life stirring. And there is! There are a number of two-leafed sprouts pushing their way up from beneath the soil all over the patch. The question is, are they wildflower sprouts or native weed sprouts? I look around and see there are a few other places where very similar-looking plantlings are trying to spring to life, so I don’t know. I suspect that, like early developing animal fetuses, all dicotyledons (a particular kind of plant that includes flowers) have very similar-appearing sprouts. I’ll just have to wait and see, I guess.
The question is, how long will I have to wait? They say April showers bring May flowers, so, maybe, a month? Worst case scenario? I’m out $16 for a dream. Very little risk for a very big potential benefit.
Meanwhile, Waldo and I get to enjoy Mother Nature the way she designed it.
The wildflower garden. Don’t know if the little green things are flowers or weeds…