Is it spring yet?

Panorama taken on the first day of spring

We've been working to get the backyard ready for my retiree lunch this weekend, and a possible Phoenix Home and Garden photo shoot, date TBD. It's an enjoyable time of the year to work outside as we find new surprises every day..

Grape arbor and "Orange Bells" Tecoma

"Queen Elizabeth" roses and nasturtiums

Mexican primrose, rosemary, and mint

Baby squash!

Water lily and iris

Roses and larkspur buds

Roses and orange blossoms (I forgot to prune this bush!)

Tomatoes!

Every rose has its thorns.

The air is full of the fragrance of citrus blossoms, the roses are beginning to open, and I'm enjoying fresh roasted asparagus on a regular basis. It must be springtime in Phoenix!

Unfortunately this spring we are having a particularly bad allergy season in the Phoenix area, probably because of our mild winter, and it has been interfering with my gardening enjoyment. There is a widespread misconception that citrus is allergenic, because spring allergy season is usually at its worst when citrus is blooming. However, this misconception is a prime example of  the scientific principle that correlation does not prove cause-and-effect. The culprit as far as allergies are concerned isn't usually fragrant plants, which tend to have large, heavy pollen grains that require insect pollinators. The problem is the things you can't smell. Wind-pollinated trees such as ash, juniper, and mulberry produce huge quantities of small, light pollen grains that float around in the air, just waiting to be inhaled and set off a histamine reaction. Here's a handy link where you can enter your zip code and find out what's causing your sniffles and sneezes.

The way I see it, allergies are to be expected in spring, just as I expect to find thorns on a rosebush, and I don't plan to give up either spring gardening or roses.

Orange blossoms

Queen Elizabeth rose buds

Plant a radish, get a radish?

I corresponded this week with Cathy Cromwell, who interviewed us last spring for a possible article in Phoenix Home and Garden magazine, about the timing for a photo shoot of our Arizona Backyard Eden. I'm guessing the garden will be at its best in late March or early April, which is when we've scheduled our annual IHS Retiree Luncheon in the Garden. At least I hope it will...gardens, like children, are seldom predictable, despite what this song from The Fantasticks might claim.

The nasturtiums and sweet allyssum I planted as a border around the raised beds didn't come up as thickly as I would have liked, so yesterday I transplanted a flat of marigolds to fill in the gaps. The roses may wind up blooming ahead of the larkspur and hollyhocks this year. The bushes are loaded with buds and a few of them have begun to open.

Is gardening dependable? Predictable? I think not, and to me that's part of the fun. But I would agree with the song  that "a man who plants a garden is a very happy man"!

Squash blossom

Yellow Iris

"Don Juan" climbing rose

Tea rose

Tea Rose

Spring blooms

Things are starting to wake up around here. Each day when I walk through the garden, I see something new. Most of the fruit trees- peach, apricot, pear, apple, plum, lemon, lime, orange, grapefruit- have begun to bud and bloom. The rose bushes have leafed out and are full of buds; the fig tree and grape vines are showing their first leaves, and zinnia, hollyhock, larkspur, nasturtium, coreopsis, and galliardia seedlings are popping up all over the place. I like to let the flowers come up where they will, and fill in the blanks with transplants. 

Lemon blossoms

First rose of the season

Peach blossoms

Pear blossoms

Nasturtiums

Petunias and Swiss chard


The words of an old hymn we used to sing in the sixties kept playing through my head as I wandered through and worked in the garden this week:

What a wondrous time is spring, when all the trees are budding. 
The birds begin to sing; the flowers start their blooming. 
That's how it is with God's love, once you've experienced it. You want to sing; it's fresh like spring; you want to pass it on.