Can’t wait, just can’t wait
Since early March, I’ve been watching long-range weather forecasts, noting the projected position of the jet stream, reading almanacs and tracking fronts online.
After months with nothing green in sight, I was so excited when the snow finally melted and I saw the first shoot poke through the soil in a flower bed. But now it’s May. And when the annual springtime gardening frenzy gets underway on the Victoria Day long weekend, it’s like Black Friday, even though some brave souls have been planting since the beginning of the month.
Bells and beepers on cash registers and card terminals are tuned up for a spending symphony, but the garden business is a tough one. Smaller nurseries and long-established local garden centres now have to compete with grocery stores and big-box stores, which see plants as just another product line.
Meanwhile, family businesses have only a narrow window to succeed, even though they do know their plants, having grown them from seed. And the “just-in-time” approach used in manufacturing is absolutely essential in this business.
Wherever they’re found, plants have to be looking their best as they await the arrival of hordes of impulse buyers. And there’s no impulse buyer like a passionate gardener who’s been dreaming of this month all winter.
Who can resist when flowering plants have been coached to bloom their little stamens off the moment they go on display? Before arriving on the rack, they’ve lived under ideal, climate-controlled conditions, pampered and treated like royalty, which is why they sometimes sulk when exposed to the vagaries of spring weather. That’s why it’s important to harden plants off by introducing them slowly to the great outdoors while protecting them from both hot sun and cold temperatures. Our average last frost date is around mid-May, but there’s always the threat of a late frost, sometimes in early June. Even so, I’ll still be there with all the other enthusiastic gardeners, looking for anything new — or blue, loading a cart with flats and pots without a thought as to where I’m going to plant the stuff.
But I’m ready. I’ve been ready since early April when I was puttering about aimlessly, waiting for the world to slowly turn green again. By now, I’m overwhelmed by the urge to plant, sometimes disregarding weather warnings. I gamble not only with the early deals I picked up the moment my local outlet began stocking the racks, but also with the seedlings I started indoors too soon that have taken over in my own crammed greenhouse. There are the summer bulbs stored over winter in the garage that have sprouted already because someone left the light on, plus the bags of new ones I bought on a whim at an early-season garden show. And let’s not forget the seed packets in my pockets that I should have sown already. However, if I waited until June to begin planting, I wouldn’t be finished until summer is half over.
With trowel in hand, I begin planting, in beds, boxes, planters and pails, anywhere there’s a patch of bare soil. I bounce around the garden like a pinball. Empty pots fly one way, tags the other. With everything planted, I feel such a sense of accomplishment — until I hear that late-spring frost warning...
By summer, I receive my reward: the day when I can sit on my bench and think, “This is the one: the one day I’ve been working for, the one day that makes all the risk and challenge worthwhile, the one day when the garden looks so perfect it takes my breath away.”