Sweet Scent of Lilacs and Rain in the Ozarks

Rain! Rain! Thirsty roots celebrate the spring days — several of them. We’ve not had a deluge, but a season of steady rain. The little creeks are flowing and all of the trees, plants and shrubs that were dried and overheated last summer are sucking up the sky nectar! Because the rain has come down over several days, we’re not seeing the flash flooding everyone dreads. Just indepth saturation!

There are signs of spring and promises of 80° F weather in the next few days which will change a lot of attitudes in the plant and people world. Transition weather? Most certainly. We’ve had light coat weather for quite awhile. We are chilly, so we get out ‘spring coats’. I don’t know that the Ozarks or upper Midwest states should expect balmy transition weather. We’ve had about 30% days that are nice to be out, but unless one is working vigorously, it is still sleeve-weather. Spring has been here, just not persistently balmy.

The flowers of spring are a fresh scent — each is a little different. The lilacs are sweetening my house inside and out as the shrubs are all coming into their own. White and lavendar both glow under the sunshine wafting a sorta fruity, mild, but definite aroma, different from the ‘dusty’ scent of the plums and later ‘brush honeysuckle’. The lilac bushes that we moved in 2012 are thriving and seem better for the move. When we were finishing that moving task, there were some good looking roots that broke away from the main shrub. They were just too good to throw away, so we stuck them all in a hole to see what would happen. They are blooming white this year. From the shape of the leaves, I think this will be a white bush although in the winter move, we weren’t sure that we didn’t gather some lavender stragglers with the white. There are eight large, established lilacs and two little ones in pots ready to be set out this year.

All of the roses are showing dark red foliage and growing lush new shoots where they were cut back in February. There are two “Knock-out roses, red and yellow, two Valentine roses, red and pink, plus three mini-roses, red, peach and ivory. All seem to have been in a good place for the winter and spring. A small ‘field’ of volunteer tomatoes burst through the ground in the raised bed where a little box of lettuce is growing beside the Egyptian walking onions and the evergreen bunching onions. And at least two little mimosa trees to re-pot and plant somewhere else. The volunteers will be thinned out even though it hurts to pull and discard a little tomato plant. But there are larger ones doing well in the bright basement window.

Sure, it’s squishy out there in that lush, rapidly growing grass that can’t be mowed for awhile. Sure, all those poor little clover seeds have likely been washed into one soupy corner of the garden area.

But, the MINT (apple, regular and chocolate) going nuts along with that little pot of oregano. The echinacea is shifting over into the larger pot while the hostas are gradually coming into their own. I think we could have left the autumn oak leaves on the bigger bed of hosta longer, but maybe not because the potted hostas are slow too.

The forsythia bushes are going to be done this week and ready for their spring clipping that will ensure us lots of flowers next year. There is only one little piece of blue hydrangea coming through and the dogwoods just aren’t ‘with it’ this year. Trees look okay with little leaves on every twig, but NO flowers. The dogwoods have held out on us everywhere, so I’m not sure what caused them to choose to stiff us, but certainly we will enjoy them very much another year. None of the suggestions as to why a Dogwood wouldn’t bloom fit the trees in the neighborhood. No disease, varied age, all the leaves look good. Ours is young and a lovely shape with new leaves on every twig, but no flowers. Last year it had a lot of blossoms and a few berries. The one tree in the neighborhood which flowered didn’t last very long; usually it has flowers for over two weeks.

The forage turnips in their sorta second season are blooming bright yellow and smell so lovely. I didn’t know that turnips are Brassicas so they keep growing from the top and extending their season. We’re leaving them alone for awhile because tomatoes will go in that patch. It is too early for the tomatoes and the bees are enjoying the turnip patch a great deal.