Enjoy simple springtime pleasures

There are many life lessons I have learned during the past year.

One lesson that stands out the most to me is this: trying to control nature is futile.

This is especially true when it comes to springtime in the Atlantic provinces. While spring hits our calendars in March (March 20 this year), it often doesn’t show up until sometime in June.

Helping nature along, however, can bridge this gap. With the right environment, we can brighten these unpredictable grey days of spring in the Atlantic region.

There is nothing quite like nature in bloom to flourish us with hope and reassurance of brighter months to come.

As part of an early birthday celebration for my husband earlier this month, eight friends (who’ve been mostly apart for the past year) bubbled together inside a twinkly light-filled glamping rooftop tent at Agricola Street Brasserie in Halifax.

The temperature had spiked to 12 whopping degrees this day and the sky was clear and the dome was cozy. For four hours, we felt like we’d been whisked away from our COVID-19 routines of isolation. It was pure magic and somewhat ethereal. Heavenly.

Two mornings later, I awoke to large snowflakes falling outside my curtainless bedroom window — a window framed with unpacked boxes from our ongoing move to our new-to-us, 102-yearold north-end Halifax home.

Time had sprung forward with a Maritime flair.

Since moving from Ireland in 2012, I’ve accepted that “spring forward” here actually represents a brief doorway we sprint through sometime around the end of June or early July 1. In Ireland, daffodils bloom mid-January and gorse shrubbery, with all their cheery, burnt yellow foliage, spread like weeds along the country roads and highways most of the year.

Our first home in the Maritimes had four gorgeous forsythia bushes lining the driveway. Their delicate yellow blooms reminded me of the gorse plants I’d become so accustomed to in April. However, here in Nova Scotia, I’d have to be patient, waiting to see them burst their buds closer toward the end of May.

My patience for spring, however, waned and I began forcing forsythia in the spirit of elevating my broken winter psyche and need for colour and new beginnings. If you can relate to any of this, you may like to join me in cheating our Maritime spring with a little mothering beyond Mother Nature. Here’s how:

1. Find your foliage, whether it be branches of forsythia, pussy willows or curly willow, and cut your branches.

2. Cut them again once indoors on a sharp angle to open as much of the stem to water as possible. Place in buckets or vases of very warm water.

3. A little sunshine and a warm space will see your branches beginning to bloom in about six days to two weeks. (I may opt to try this with lilacs as well in May.)

Time your clippings for a good week before Easter and adorn the branches with miniature hanging pastel eggs before the buds bloom. I call them spring trees; they remind me of a trip I once took through Dinkelsbuhl, Germany, around Easter. Many small villages would have windowsill upon windowsill of blooming planters mixed with sparkly eggs and spring trees.

I’ve learned through this pandemic that it’s about making my own joy and finding sparkle in small, attainable projects. No shrubbery nearby to clip? Try origami tulips, which can be equally fun. May your spring be in full bloom!