This is the time of year to plant – and plan – for a future of flowers and better days. Marilyn Englander has this Perspective.
We’re into the dark time of year. The weather has sharpened and chilled, though offering small gifts of rain. The hours of daylight diminish, then feel slashed by the change of the clocks. As I look at brown hills and rake leaves into the gutter, I reluctantly admit the earth is shutting down. Only one more calendar page to flip.
Then: the ultimate act of faith and hope. I begin planting bulbs.
It was the backyard squirrels who reminded me. What with political chaos, weather disasters and world crises, the whole situation was feeling bleak. But I looked out my window and there was a tiny squirrel furiously digging in the hard soil under the fig tree. I’ve tried to get a shovel into that ground, but the drought has turned it to concrete. And yet here she was, determined to put that acorn into safe-keeping underground. She’d need it, come March, feeding hungry babies. She had her sights on the future.
At the garden store, a rainbow display of springtime color greeted me, promising as the poet did, crowds of dancing daffodils, and narcissus, hyacinths. The bulbs looked as bad as the season, though --- shriveled beige husks that challenged me to believe they still held life. Nevertheless, I toted home a bagful of daffodils and got the rusty shovel out of the garage.