Every spring there was a race in our front yard. The crocus was the usual winner. Stretching toward this seasonal goal line, their blue, purple and yellow hands would open wide. Accompanying thin blades of green pierced the melting snow, which attempted to thwart them. Quickly following the ground display, came the sky-thrust branches of the forsythia covered with four-petaled blooms in yellows of various tints. Yellow is not merely yellow; it shouts with a variety of tones.
The first tree I planted in the middle of our front yard was a cherry which, each spring, poured forth its pink-white blossoms a bit later than did the forsythia and its companion pussy willows with their grey-fur puffs on leafless branches. The Japanese cherry yielded no fruit, but only its colorful petals, which quickly blanketed the ground beneath it. The wild apple trees in the vacant field next to our front-yard did not bear fruit either, but their white-pink blossoms complemented those of the cherry tree as they, too, blew away on the spring breeze.
Meanwhile, red Emperor tulips and Dutch daffodils, with their golden corona surrounding darker crowns, burst from bulbs planted the previous fall and allowed to cool naturally in the ground. Years later, in Houston, I learned that a refrigerator had to replace nature in order to grow anything from bulbs. It was such foolishness as this that sidetracked my gardening instincts when we moved to Texas. Near the Gulf Coast, I needed to forget those plants I had loved but which refused to grow in my newly discovered semi-tropics. In Texas I had to learn about plants that might survive if they were covered by sheets and towels when the temperatures dropped in January.
The purple, violet and red rhododendrons concealing the foundations for our house in Amherst had to be forgotten. I learned to accept azaleas of a similar color and function in a misnamed Spring, Texas. The perennial mountain laurel, which existed through New England snows and released pink, white and variegated blooms in late spring and early summer, could no longer be grown along the side of our house.
And then there were the lilacs, standing guard in a row along the chain-link fence in our Northeastern backyard. To my surprise these bushes became the home, one year, for a swarm of passing bees. Fortunately, a local beekeeper quickly arrived and was pleased to add to his own hives the thousands accompanying their queen to a new realm. Evidently, she liked a lilac fragrance as much as I did, and for which I continue to long.
Unlike transient honeybees, our Japanese beetles came each summer to take up residence with our hybrid tea roses, majestic in their hues of pink, apricot, yellow and red. Although magnificent in color, the teas had no fragrance. But if I got close enough, I could make out the odor of the red geraniums planted among them as a hoped-for natural protection from the beetles, which enjoyed munching on the roses every chance they had. On the other hand, my primroses were not attacked by the beetles who preferred the real thing. I had planted these small, colorful mounds in a rock garden near the willow tree in our back yard.
Yes, the willow was there to draw up water which, otherwise, would have accumulated in the lower regions of the yard. I was distressed to observe, when we visited Amherst years later, that the willow was gone. I don’t know why the new owners engaged in such a crime. At least the blue spruce I had planted at the side of the house was still there, albeit at a height I could not believe achievable. Fortunately, I had planted this pine tree far enough from the side of the house to allow for such an event. The cherry tree was also of an appropriate size, as was the mountain ash I had planted near the driveway.
Of course, there were also the annuals and semi-annuals I replaced each year, in an attempt to learn what I liked and what would grow during the short New England summer and fall. There were bleeding hearts with their bright pink puffs and white drops. Red coxcomb added interesting shapes. I also planted blue lupine to give their unique color to the beds. The gladioli, which were tall enough to require staking, offered their own bright colors. The chrysanthemums planted for display in the autumn had hues that were deeper in the red, yellow, orange and bronze part of the spectrum. They looked regal near the red brick patio surrounding the swimming pool.
I fell in love with gardening in New England. Each Saturday Karen would take the boys to the stadium to watch the UMA Minutemen play football, while I listened to a radio broadcast of the game so I knew when I should stop working in the yard and take my shower before I met her and our friends for the usual after-game gathering at someone’s home.
Making decisions on what to plant and how to prune those beautiful beings was much healthier for me than worrying about the next problem the faculty would bring to my attention. If I could have taken a whack at some of them, my life would have been very different. It was for our mutual welfare that whacking weeds and de-heading spent blossoms was of benefit to both humans and non-humans in this New England college town with its bulbs, buds, beetles and bees.